


Phantom Pains

by Vigils



Category: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Character Study, Doctor/Patient Dynamic, F/M, Guilt/Shame, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lore Compliant, M/M, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Power Dynamics, Rough Sex, Size Difference, Slow Burn, Smut is in chapter 8, Unresolved Sexual Tension, lord/retainer dynamic, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 13:34:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vigils/pseuds/Vigils
Summary: In the aftermath of the Hirata Massacre, Genichiro imprisons the disgraced shinobi who seems to have murdered his own master. However, Isshin knows better, and orders the Wolf into Ashina's service--as Genichiro's own private retainer.





	1. Ashen Rain

Ash fell thick over what had once been the Hirata Estate. A slurry of cinders, rain, and blood swilled underfoot as Genichiro walked with his men through its ruined streets and ravaged bamboo forests, churning them yet further into mud. This should have been a rescue party, but they had come too late. Instead, the wake of a battle they’d just barely won had forced him to take a pitiful band of tired and injured infantrymen, now acting more as undertakers than as soldiers. All of four survivors had been found, and even they took some time to coax out from the safety of their homes. One of them, a woman whose voice was youthful but whose face showed the strain of years of war, told Genichiro everything that had unfolded: that the thieves had descended in the night, raided and burned the homes, slaughtered the horses and the men, raped every woman they could get their hands on… but they had been quiet for hours, now. After the shinobi came through, the one who served the young lord… 

That was surely the son of Owl. A man Genichiro had heard of, but never met. He understood only his importance as the sworn protector of that boy. Everyone had their role to play. If the shinobi known as Wolf had gone further into the estate in search of him, then Genichiro knew exactly what he’d find—either they’d both be safe, or they’d both be dead.

Once-flourishing fields of singed bamboo served as the harrowing lead-up to the mansion. The gate, barely standing on its scorched posts, framed a view of complete destruction: though the fires were dying now, the smouldering and collapsed ruins would still be just as dangerous. And yet… it seemed a path had been cleared through the rubble, granting passage from the courtyard through to the inner estate. With their muskets trained on every shadow and rooftop, Genichiro led his men through. As with the rest of the estate, the central courtyard was awash with dead bodies—the attacking thugs, mostly, their jugulars cut cleanly as if with a single stab of a well-sharpened, expertly-aimed katana. Retainers, too, however, by the dozens, joined the body count. Their deaths had not been as clean.

Something one of the survivors had said played on Genichiro’s mind. _The timing of the attack was perfect… too perfect… that shinobi knew that the fighting men would be away… I bet he led them here himself…_

What cause would a shinobi have to betray his lord?

“Sir Nogami…” Lying dead beside the hulking corpse of his fallen enemy, the aged samurai was one Genichiro recognised, though just barely—the skin on his hands and face was discoloured and disfigured, as though it had bubbled and popped. The effects of what must have been poison. The same substance coated the sword of the man he’d died fighting. “This must have been their leader. A brute. Nogami fulfilled his duty to the very end. Have his body conveyed for a proper burial.” He set two of his men to the task, and led the rest inside the mansion.

The trail leading to its bitter end was well-marked with blood and bodies. Two more survivors—a young samurai who gave his name as Inosuke, and his mother—were escorted to safety. That left two soldiers flanking their Lord as they descended into the hidden bowels of the house.

“Nobu. Daichi. Stay on your guard,” he told them, “We have no idea what we’ll find.”

The air below was scarcely breathable. Thick with smoke and live embers, Genichiro struggled to see either—but the ultimate outcome of this dark event was made clear all too soon.

“It’s… the young lord!” Nobu rasped, going to his knees by the side of the smaller of two bodies. “He’s… he’s dead… Lord Kuro.”

It was a tragic sight—blood bloomed like a flower upon the child’s pale lip, red like the wound on his breast. The same red that coated the katana of the man lying next to him.

Daichi stood over this second corpse, its face buried in the dirt floor. Ash and blood sullied a torn outfit of chainmail, shitagi, hakama… and tabi of the sort shinobi wore. “He did it…” Daichi spat. “He did it, the bastard!”

Genichiro narrowed his eyes and lowered the cloth from his nose and mouth. There was a strange scent in the air, discernible even over the stench of blood and smoke. Sakura blossoms, incongruous and sweet. “Turn him over.”

Daichi kicked the man in the side and sprawled him upon his back. Blood stained the front of his haori, too, much in the same place as the wound on his master’s chest. Such an amount, in such a place, ought to have been mortal. But Genichiro wasn’t mistaken… the man’s eyes fluttered.

“Rouse him,” he ordered.

Daichi frowned. “Sir, he’s…” 

“He is not. Rouse him.”

The soldier did as he was asked and struck the dying man promptly across the face with the back of his gauntlet—once on each cheek for good measure. Though probably it was harder than it needed to be, it had the desired effect. The man groaned and opened his eyes. His gaze swam, hazy with death, and rested on the boy beside him.

Three grinding wheezes escaped him before words formed, and his voice sounded as though he had not only breathed smoke, but devoured ash. “M… Lord…”

Genichiro scrutinised him closely. His face, twisted by pain, but otherwise unreadable. Was that anger? Sorrow? “Son of the Owl,” the Ashina lord addressed him, half a question. There was no response to confirm or deny. He pressed: “What happened here?”

“They couldn’t take him…” the shinobi murmured, barely audible over the crackling of dying flames. “I wouldn’t let them take him…”

_“Bastard.”_

So it was like that. And like that, the Ashina lord saw only a contemptible creature. It took every ounce of self-control in him to not spit on the man. Would he had died, and followed his forsaken master into the next life, there to pay his crushing debt. But if fate had decided he would live… perhaps it meant to punish him for this betrayal in this life, rather than the next.

“Bring him. And the young lord… will have a prince’s burial.”

Weeping softly, Nobu took the white cloth from his pack, the one they had brought along for this very purpose but had hoped sorely not to use, and laid it over the body of the murdered child.

A prince’s burial was what he received, and this time it was snow falling from the sky and not ash, but Genichiro was still reminded of that day, and of the bloody scene that had waited for them at the end of the Hirata Massacre—that was what people were now calling it.

Lord Isshin adjusted the crossed collar of his funereal kimono. “A tragedy,” his grandfather sighed, with somewhat more feeling than had been spared for the swath of other burials held in the past day alone. “To think his mother and father must have been killed, too, right before his eyes.”

“Yes,” Genichiro agreed. “Whatever tragedy he saw, he is at peace now.”

Such seemed to be the wish of everyone who’d known the young lord, and a great many who had never had the chance. One by one, the Hirata survivors and Ashina retainers lined up to place flowers upon the altar alongside the wooden spirit tablet inscribed in his name. Someone had offered a jizo statue. White flecks of snow fell on the crimson cloth that swathed it, unmelting in the bitter cold.

“A tragedy…” Isshin sighed again, as the funeral ceremony was ending.

Some time after the young Lord Kuro’s cremation, Genichiro walked with his grandfather around the lookout platform of the castle’s tallest tower, the winter wind biting through their armour. The panorama of the Ashina clan’s ancestral realm lay below them, coded with strategic wisdom invisible to any eyes but their own—Genichiro could see each weak point in their defences, each exit and entrance, each cinch point. His mind drew lines in the scenery, but its focus was only half set upon the task.

“The disgraced wolf you brought in,” Lord Isshin began, staring out through the snow at nothing in particular. “Has there been any change?”

The shinobi had been restrained and confined since the night he had found him, and on at least three occasions (that Genichiro knew of), he’d been beaten in the hopes that he’d spew some more truth about his hand in the Hirata Massacre. So far, though, nothing. He had no more fight in him than a dead dog, and had said even less. Why did he live?

“He’s thinner,” said Genichiro summarily.

Isshin raised the eyebrow he still had control over, giving his remaining eye a cold glint. “So… you haven’t managed to kill him just yet.”

“I’m still hoping that he’ll speak.”

“Good.” Isshin took a last, deep breath of the biting air. “Good.” He then turned on his heel, heading toward the doors with his signature gait—that which is only possessed by a master of the sword, dignified and footsure even in his age.

“Grandfather…?”

He’d asked to see him, for what Genichiro had assumed was a good reason. New orders, he’d assumed, or at least a request for a status report. But Isshin had known the Owl closely, news of whose death had long since reached Ashina’s ears. It seemed the late and great shinobi’s son had now consumed his curiosity. 

“Don’t trouble yourself with him any longer, Genichiro,” Isshin called back, before heading inside. Though it made his nails dig into his palms, Genichiro knew better than to pursue the man, or any of the questions that did, nonetheless, continue to trouble his mind.

The next time he stopped by at the narrow, locked room where he had ordered the traitorous shinobi to be restrained, the man was no longer there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i set out just wanting to write some shameless m/m smut but ended up with An Actual Plot so if that's what you're looking for i hope you'll read on!!
> 
> this diverges from canon quite a lot in the sense that kuro dies at the hirata raid, thus changing everything about the way the game's story would play out i.e. genichiro being a big douche.
> 
> as well as the schematics of the raid, i wanted to clear up for myself some of the cryptic backstory of tomoe and takeru, who were so intriguing to me, so they'll feature heavily in later chapters.


	2. Mending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw for mild medical squick, and for geni being a dick, but that should come as no surprise

The needle threaded in and out.

“Does it hurt?”

Wolf only grit his teeth harder, giving leave for the doctor to loop the thin strand of catgut in on itself and tighten it to a knot, the skin pulling closed like a purse. His body had endured worse pain. There was no point in complaining.

“There. That’s done.” With as much as grace as she’d performed the stitches, Ema replaced her suturing needle and forceps on the tray she’d brought to the room, alongside a roll of gauze bandages and a pill box. “Please, don’t touch them.” Wolf dropped his hand from his right brow; the exploration had been habitual, not curious. The last item on the tray was a small hand mirror. She turned it around.

Wolf glanced at the polished brass just long enough to get an impression of a centipede making its way over his eye before sharply looking away. Not even the gentlest of hands could make pretty work of a suture.

“Must I take your silence as approval?” The doctor’s soft voice showed just a hint of amusement. “Just as I had to take your white knuckles as a sign I wasn’t hurting you?”

Wolf forced himself to look at his reflection again, fighting the nausea that rose deep in his chest. The past few days had left him sallow and gaunt. He could have done with a shave, and a comb… But what did it matter? He was no longer worth the skin she’d worked so carefully to save. Yet the stitches were masterful. This ragged gash, a memento from one of his jailers’ gauntleted fists, wouldn’t match the old scar that bisected his left brow, but he was reminded all the same. He’d dressed that wound himself, with fingers that had been a child’s, even if they were already callused. This one might scarcely leave a mark. 

His vision wandered over the top of the mirror. The doctor’s gaze was trained on him. Honey-brown and betraying just the softest hint of mirth (or was it regret?), he wondered how she could keep her stare as steady as her hands when what she was faced with was… him. He was the one to look away.

“What is it?”

“You remind me of…” Ema laughed softly. “…Never mind.”

She segued smoothly away from the distraction and continued her work. “May I?” Wolf nodded, and she slipped the layers of haori and shitagi down from his shoulders, exposing the chainmail jacket he’d always worn. In its centre was a rent mess of broken metal loops, some split in half like tiny sickles, rust-red with his heart’s blood, now dry. The exit point of the blade that should have killed him.

Ema’s fingers were unusually cold, considering their hours’ work. As they traced the silvery remnants of the mortal wound, he fought back a shiver, though the chill was not the only cause. The touch made him think of sakura flowers, and smoke. And death. Yet he was not dead.

“I…” the doctor began, but was interrupted by the sound of the shoji door sliding open unannounced.

Wolf was close enough to hear the catch of breath in her throat as she turned to meet the newcomer, and close enough to see her face smooth quickly out into neutrality. “My lord.” She bowed her head. Wolf looked out of the corner of his eye.

The room had clearly not been built with his stature in mind. The top of a plumed kabuto brushed the doorframe, his shoulders almost filling the sides. Maybe if _he’d_ come and beaten Wolf himself, he’d have had better luck with whatever it was he’d wanted his men to get out of him. He shrugged off the thought as the warlord bore over them both, his face like a thundercloud.

Wolf recognised the voice that spoke, but not the tone in it. “These are… my quarters,” said Genichiro Ashina. 

Ema glanced at her patient. “Yes. Lord Isshin thought it best…” she trailed off and finished with something that wasn’t quite a question. “He did make you aware.”

Silence carefully bridled the situation. Only the sound of leather tightening on itself—probably inaudible to normal ears—disturbed its reign.

“Yes,” said Lord Genichiro. “Of course.”

Apparently Ema didn’t need to be a shinobi to pick up the sound of a lie. However, she had tact. Bowing her head again, the physician rose with her surgical tray and headed past the man in the doorway without another word, though their eyes did meet in an unspoken exchange not even Wolf could overhear.

That left him, alone, with the man who’d seen fit to pull him out of a burning building—only to lock him in a cell and have him beaten within an inch of his life. Sitting cross-legged on the tatami, Wolf kept his head down, not fearing, for the first time he could remember, the nape that Ema’s administrations had left bare. Fear for oneself… it seemed now a wasteful luxury, one that belonged to another life.

A laugh. That was what broke the silence this time. Despite himself Wolf’s head snapped up, catching the Ashina lord in a fairly controlled moment of contempt and disbelief, nostrils flared, fists clenching on his hips—or were his fingers clutching at his sword’s scabbard, thinking to draw it… Wolf stared him down until the moment subsided and Genichiro looked him in the eye once more. 

“So, he decided not to take you off my hands after all,” he said, as though that was supposed to mean anything. “I respect Ema’s handiwork. I won’t undo it so quickly. But tell me something now. Freely. Without me having to give you more bruises in places she won’t find.”

Wolf waited for the question. Genichiro didn’t pose it immediately; instead he reached down for the sake bottle that Ema had left behind and poured out a measured cup. The many pieces of his armour—both lamellar and plate, expensively tooled and lacquered—clinked and shifted as he moved, never taking his dark stare off of the smaller man now sitting at his feet. Wolf suddenly felt underdressed, and discreetly shrugged his clothes back over himself.

It should have come as neither a shock nor a surprise… “Did you kill your master?”

…So why did it still hit him like a fist in the stomach? Bone-deep nausea threatened to overwhelm him; he swallowed it down, placing each fist on the mat and pushing against the sensation of wanting his skeleton to crumble to dust.

“Yes,” the shinobi answered lowly. “If not by my own hand, then by failing to move when it mattered most.”

He heard rather than saw Genichiro throw the sake back and a low hiss escape his teeth—either from the wine’s astringency or some more personal feeling. “Whose blade took the young lord’s life?”

“I… don’t remember.”

_CRACK._ Pain flashed black and white across the right side of his face. When he opened his eyes, the shards of the sake cup were scattered in his lap and over the mat, and Lord Genichiro was cursing a bloody slice on his finger. Wolf reached up to his brow and felt wet. The stitches were open again. 

“No…” the taller man snarled. “I don’t think you were capable of doing such a thing.”

A shadow fell between Wolf’s hunched form and the dimly glowing candles that lit the room as Lord Genichiro stepped closer. Some strange scent lingered on him. Perfume, but—that seemed only a mask for what lay beneath. Ozone. Singed hair.

The lord’s voice was almost crooning now. “I never saw a more cowardly dog. Of course you didn’t raise your hand against your master. You’d never raise your hand at all. These bruises…” Wolf knew his eyes were tracing the dark blooms that lined the angles of his jaw and cheekbones. “To think a shinobi would let such harm come to himself… why not his lord…?”

Wolf looked up at the man expressionlessly. It struck him that _his lord_… that was Genichiro Ashina now. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. To wrest the title away from the hands of a dead child. A child he’d failed. “As you say,” he ended weakly.

It was apparently insufficient. Genichiro lowered himself down to half his great height, dropping his voice at the same time to a menacing growl. Wolf could feel the other man’s breath on his face. Yes. It was unmistakeable. The smell of something burnt. “I know there is more at play than you’re letting on. Who was there that night… Who you were fighting… 

“And this…” An arm moved forward, without warning, and one finger tugged Wolf’s ruined layers away from his chest.

The shinobi’s hand shot out and held the lord’s wrist in a vice grip. 

Genichiro observed the situation coolly, lips tight. “Remove your hand,” he murmured, “Before I remove it for you.”

Wolf exhaled, feeling his nerves unwind. Instinct had flared; some things at least did not die easily. But he complied, his fingertips white and shaking as they released their grip on the metal bracer. Genichiro’s touch continued, and found the tender ridge of the new wound—already like an old scar—sealing the shinobi’s heart. 

A sound like amusement fluttered from his lips. “It seems you’re not ready to lie down and die just yet.”

Absently, Wolf considered that one of the man’s hands was big enough to wrap across his entire chest. Had he really wasted away that much?

It seemed a similarly absent-minded action when Genichiro placed his own sliced finger between his lips, suckling the blood like a kitten. His gaze was elsewhere, returning to the door without another word and leaving it open behind him. Truly lone at last, Wolf gathered himself, breathing deep until he realised the scent of burning was stuck in his nostrils and probably would be for hours now.

His ears suddenly pricked; Genichiro reappeared in the doorway a few seconds later, nostrils slightly flared. 

“A weak shinobi is worthless to me,” he declared. “You start training tomorrow. That is my first order to you, in accordance with the bond of lord and retainer. Am I understood?”

Wolf bowed his head. “Yes…” He swallowed. A bead of fresh blood trickled from his brow over his cheek. “…My lord.”

Genichiro Ashina nodded sharply and disappeared once more. Wolf picked up the second order from his new master as the murmur retreated down the hall. “And take a bath…”

That evening, the Wolf took a bath. But only because it was an order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was the chapter where i realised m'lord is a big dumbass, but would be way too proud to ever admit that, so that's what i'm rolling with for the rest of this fic


	3. The Ashina Cross

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one turned out waaaay longer than intended. thanks to anyone who's sticking it out with me thus far! that being said, i had a great time writing this, even while i tend to struggle with action-focused scenes. getting to play with m'lord being brutal in a dojo uniform made it all worth it. and YES - this is a Gen Actually Knows Ashina Sword Style AU. because come on.

Feet scuffed in the dirt and Wolf took another bruising stab to the pectoral.

“Dead. _Again_.” Sighing, Ito Yamauchi disengaged, swinging his arm around in a languid arc so that the wooden sparring sword echoed his exasperation. “Y’know, for a shinobi, you don’t seem to get how death works. This catches you in the right place—” The officer feinted forward one last time, rolling his eyes when Wolf raised his own blade to deflect it a second too late and took a glancing blow to the side. “—and you’re dead.”

Wolf shrugged off the strain in his muscles and settled back into a defensive stance with the wooden bokuto raised. Feet planted wide, body turned to protect his weak side and enable a quick turn into either a cunning deflection or an opportunistic strike… He knew this. He was this. 

“Get it?” Ito two-handed his sword to indicate it. “This is what you want to avoid.”

Wolf grunted in acknowledgement, knowing by now it was best to humour the man.

“Right. Let’s go.”

They sparred again, and the shinobi batted aside a series of quick overhead strikes, and caught an underhanded swipe intended to cut under his guard. However, Ito followed it up with a feint, and then a backstep—startlingly swift for the stoutly built man—and the next thing Wolf knew, he was on his back as pain like a black lotus bloomed and overwhelmed his chest. When the spots dancing across his vision cleared, Ito was standing over him, shaking his head.

“Dead again.” The officer tapped him with his toe, making Wolf wince and clutch his heart in spite of himself.

His heart. That was where the pain was. As he lay there, simply breathing or trying to, the acute pain slowly ebbed and faded to a hazy memory, coloured with smoke and the scent of sakura blossoms. He’d heard of attacks of the heart, rare as they were, but never assumed he’d die by one. Nonsense. It was just a regular blow, from an edgeless training blade… Feeling harried and weak, he picked himself up off the ground and feebly regained his stance. 

“No, enough,” snapped the Yamauchi officer. “I’ve been killing you for a week now. No improvement. I got my karma to consider, y’know?”

The two men sat against the wall of the draughty courtyard and sipped water chilled by the winter air, though in truth there wasn’t much need to catch their breath.

“What’s your deal, eh?” Ito asked, earnestly, wiping the moisture off his moustache with a blunt thumb. “You’re the son of Owl. The greatest shinobi of our time. Everyone’s heard stories of him…”

“I’m not him.” Wolf tugged irritably at the second-hand clothes he’d been given days ago, after he’d first pledged his service to the Ashina Clan. They replaced the timeworn set that he’d owned for as long as he could remember, but a week hadn’t been long enough to get used to the change. The hakama were worn loose, and the grey shitagi was too big for him, leaving his neck cold and bare—a discomfort marked even more by the bereavement of his scarf. He had no idea where his old clothes had gone. “The Owl is dead,” he concluded. Like Lord Kuro. Like all the Hirata Clan. All of them dead, except Wolf.

“No, but you were his prodigy. I expected… I don’t know. More. And I don’t just mean someone taller.” Ito was looking at him, he knew. That brazen mix of contempt and curiosity marked men of his standing, or higher… or indeed, much lower. Shinobi didn’t really fit into any of these clear-cut ranks. They remained strays, to be hated, or feared. “What’s missing, shinobi?”

What was missing? He didn’t understand the question, or… didn’t want to. He tried not to think much at all now.

Receiving no response, Ito gave a final grunt and pushed himself to his feet. “Look… I thought I’d let you know I’ve already sent word up to Lord Genichiro.” Wolf raised his head, a plummeting feeling in his stomach. “His orders were to get you up to strength and… well…”

“What?” Wolf asked warily. He hadn’t spoken with his new master since they’d been not-so-formally introduced. Though they shared close quarters, somehow Genichiro managed to avoid the shinobi at every turn, allowing Wolf only brief glimpses of the man, always fully armoured and fully unreadable, as he went about his duties as lord and commander. The stitches from that night had healed over now. Yet the impression he’d made remained, like a bruise, something he touched upon when his thoughts, darkly clouded, led to pain.

Was Genichiro Ashina truly the chance he’d been given to redeem himself? Was this really his fate?

“To see if you still had it in you,” the Yamauchi officer concluded, and the sinking feeling in Wolf’s stomach settled into a queasy ebb.

“…I see.”

“It’s bad news. Sorry about it.” Ito shrugged, showing just a hint of what might have been remorse, before striding across the yard, both of the bokuto in-hand. They were clearly done. Wolf supposed he was, too. “Lady Ema! Good day.” Ito suddenly halted, bowing shallowly to the young woman who’d appeared round the corner.

The doctor wasn’t wearing the colourful garb she usually wore for the daily medical visits she made to Wolf’s room. What she wore now was still slightly masculine, a style she chose out of practicality, but consisted of what looked for all intents and purposes like the Ashina samurai’s training uniform, tightly layered in faded indigo. The unmistakeable shape of a sword poked through the striped hanten she’d thrown on to come outside.

“Your trainee is required in the dojo,” said Ema. 

“The dojo?” The officer stuttered. “He hasn’t… with all due respect, this man can barely keep his footing in a duel. He has no place stepping into the school of the masters—” 

The shadow of a smile danced on her lips; an accessory Wolf was by now more used to seeing. “Lord Genichiro himself has requested it.”

That shut Ito up quickly. Keeping his head down, Wolf followed Ema back inside the castle and traced her swift, gliding ascent to the top of the central tower. She didn’t speak, and he didn’t ask. His nails digging into his palm with every floor they climbed were all the answer he needed; he knew what awaited him.

“I suppose you just wait here,” said Ema, indicating a small tatami in the middle of the hard-floored room. The dojo was empty, except for the racks of swords, lances, and unstrung bows that lined every wall, cage-like in their symmetry. “Wolf… Good luck.”

He looked at her sharply, but with a quirk of her brow, Ema had already turned and left the way they’d come in. She slid the door shut behind her, and Wolf took in the crushing silence created by empty space that is used to being filled by the clashing of swords. He stared at the opposite wall, imagining the countless spars that had been performed here, the bruises given, the lessons learned. It reminded him of a boy, small for his age, learning the art of rising from every fall… though not exactly. The Wolf’s own training had never been carried out in a place like this. His blade had been tempered in the dust and the mud—and then in blood.

There and then, he realised he’d failed that child, too.

With a low hiss, the door slid open behind him.

Wolf remained motionless on the tatami, though his fists slowly clenched where they rested upon his knees. The door slid closed again, and someone stepped slowly across the floor—an even, measured gait belying a swordsman—and removed a weapon from a rack. A katana—Wolf knew from the pitch of the metallic ring that cut the air as the blade was passed from hand to hand, weighed up, and… stillness. The hairs on the back of his neck and arms were standing straight on end.

He heard the swing of the blade before he saw it—completely out of his line of sight, the blow was aimed to incapacitate. His body moved in spite of his mind. Rolling over one shoulder, he landed catlike to face his opponent, head still intact but filled with the militant pulse of a dogged heart. A heart that wasn’t done beating just yet.

“Lord Genichiro…” he breathed.

The man would have been almost unrecognisable, had Wolf not known better. His elaborate and bulky armour had been totally forgone in favour of crisp black hakama, pleats swinging over bare ankles, and a white kosode with the sleeves tied back. Lean muscle corded the arms so unhabitually on display. The contrast, the simplicity, somehow served only to emphasise his sheer height and power, now rendered in an image of equal elegance and dread; Genichiro raised the sword overhead once more. The blade’s edge glinted. It was sharp.

“_Get up._” 

Wolf glanced at the weapons rack on the closest wall, and in doing so, hesitated just a moment too long. He threw himself to the side just in time to avoid the downwards strike that would have cleaved the arm from his shoulder. Almost on hands and knees he scrabbled over to the wall. He grabbed the first katana in reach—blunt—and whirled, catching Genichiro’s third strike at the handguard. For a muscle-trembling moment their blades were locked. Wolf’s eyes travelled up his lord’s arms, over branching, burn-like scars, and settled on a face he’d never seen without the overcast darkling of a steel visor. It was… startling. He’d never seen him smile, either. Now that he saw the cold grin spreading over Genichiro Ashina’s lips, Wolf suddenly wished that were still the case.

They broke apart like wildcats and circled each other, slowly, blades raised. Perspiration beaded on Wolf’s brow. Genichiro’s smirk was as steady as his stare, but Wolf knew he was silently taking in every aspect of his opponent, from his footwork to the placement of his hands on the sword. Gauging him. Dissecting him. He couldn’t give anything away. 

This man meant to kill him. He knew that already. But Genichiro had never meant to take his life without making a bloody meal of it.

The taller man rushed forward suddenly, three swift steps across the floor. The power behind his backhanded swing was audible—a vocal in-draw of breath. Wolf heard that before the blade even got close, and cut it down in mid-air. Yet for his size Genichiro was fast—he mirrored the blow on the right. Wolf caught it again. But Genichiro couldn’t set the rhythm here. Wolf was faster—he feinted a blow to the head, and got what he wanted: his opponent’s unprotected middle wide open. He ducked low and brought his sword with savage force into the taller man’s ribs. With a grunt of pain, Genichiro staggered back, already on the defensive once more. Wolf willed himself stony-faced. There was only one way to win this.

He leapt back in, aiming two quick strikes to each side. Genichiro fended them off without difficulty. They were only meant to mislead him. Just as Wolf was dashing to the side, aiming to deliver a sharp crack to the back of the neck… Genichiro evaded him entirely. Wolf quickly turned back his face his opponent, guarding against any counterattack. But Genichiro had put his blade away. The soft slide of metal into the scabbard tied at his waist brought a deathly quiet to their play.

Though he stayed on guard, Wolf let himself catch his breath. The lord was toying with him. His smile betrayed it—the wanton leer of the hunter. Then again, Wolf reflected that of the two of them, he had landed the most blows—even if it had not drawn blood. Had this been a game after all? Surely… 

“My lord—” he began.

The blinding flash of steel cut him off. Entirely. His guard was broken like paper. The blunted blade in his hand split into two, clattering to the dojo floor. And his front—awash with blood. He was falling. The hardwood knocked the wind out of him. The scent of sakura flowers on the breeze…

Genichiro wasted no time pinning him down and laying the sharpened edge against his throat. Wolf felt his adam’s apple grate against it as he strained to draw breath.

“Giving up yet?” Genichiro growled, hot against his face.

Wolf tore clarity from the haze that threatened to overwhelm him and glared his would-be killer down. The taller man was crushing him. He couldn’t push his blade away without slicing his hands to ribbons. Struggling would only exhaust himself. But he was no stranger to this. He grit his teeth, hooked a leg over Genichiro’s, and brought his skull up into his nose—_hard_. There was a muffled bark of pain and blood that was not his own gushed over his lips. Now was his chance to wrest the sword for himself. He grabbed hilt and blunted edge, and using the leverage of his hooked leg, pushed forcefully upwards with his hips. Both men went tumbling—once, twice, three times—before Wolf finally had the larger man pinioned under him… and the katana’s point poised at his jugular.

It took several moments for Wolf to identify the rhythmic pounding filling the room as a slow round of applause. He dared not take his eyes off of Genichiro, who was breathing languidly through blood-stained teeth and burning two holes with his glare, but the following voice soon answered it for him.

“Nicely done, my boy! Very nicely done!”

A hand, skin and bone, yet possessed by the strength and confidence of a warlord, grabbed Wolf by his shoulder and hauled him off the other man, pulling him upright only to almost topple him again with a mighty pat on the back. Even in his venerable age, Isshin Ashina stood even taller than his grandson—a full foot taller than the shinobi. Wolf dropped to one knee. The blood immediately rushed to the point between his eyes, and he blinked back stars as Lord Isshin coarsely laughed.

“Such cunning. Such determination. _That_ is how you win a _fight_!” Isshin tapped Wolf on the shoulder again, and he rose, nodding in acknowledgement of the praise. Genichiro staggered to his feet nearby, silently bleeding onto his once white kosode. Isshin continued, “I knew that there was something in you, lad, something that was keeping you going. All you needed was for a real fight to awaken it, eh?”

“My lord,” Wolf nodded, before flushing. His lord was Genichiro. Albeit, appointed to him by Isshin himself.

“That night, when your father died, by all accounts you should have been done for too. How fortunate you made your way to us. Ah, I remember the old bird fondly. He clearly taught you well. Come, young Wolf, walk with me. We’ll raise a toast to his honour—and to you—!”

“Lord Isshin.” Ema’s voice. She must have come in with the old lord. Now, she was tending to Genichiro’s streaming nose with an ice-cloth. Her voice was level, calm; her expression equally so. “Lord Genichiro… performed a perfect execution of the Ashina Cross.”

Isshin passed his single eye between them, weighing up the bruise likely spreading across Wolf’s forehead. The open, expectant smile of Ema. Genichiro’s vacant gaze, directed pointedly out of the window, and his sword—the one that had awakened the Wolf—discarded on the floor, still clinging to its hard-won prize of scarlet blood.

“Yes,” said Isshin. “Well, come along, my boy. We’ll drink, and talk, and I’ll tell you how that old bird came by his name, same as yours.”

Wolf followed him—he felt it would be a grave mistake not to. But as he reached the door, he passed a glance over his shoulder. Genichiro’s gaze met his, not wrathful, now. Not anything, really. Wolf nodded, as if thanking him for the blood they’d both shed. For the taste of salt and metal that now filled his mouth.

Genichiro nodded back, and Wolf left the dojo. It wasn’t long after that, the adrenaline passed, he realised the tension that was holding his body up like a string doll. The sort of electricity he had not felt since the night he’d lost everything. There was something more, too. This, he hadn’t felt in a much longer time. It was soon buried in sake and stories.


	4. A Paper Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genichiro knows the Wolf didn't murder his young lord, and has begun the hunt to find out who did--a cold trail, until he realises why Kuro Hirata could not have been killed by normal means.

Dust eddied and danced in the breeze from the open windows of the library, riffling the papers that Genichiro had left scattered over the table where he sat, cross-legged, snoring softly, fast asleep on one arm. Ema debated whether to tap him gently or, for old time’s sake if nothing else, opt for the finger jab in the armpit. In the end, she mourned her lack of zest as of late, and simply cleared her throat. 

Genichiro jolted awake. “Ema! _Damn it_…” He rubbed the nose he had knocked on his way up. The middle of his face was still slightly swollen and pink; at first it had looked laughable amidst the rest of his sallow, angular features, but there was something endearing about it now. He was lucky it hadn’t been broken.

“I’m sorry,” she winced. “It’s midnight. I wanted to wait for you but… you didn’t show up, and I was hungry, so Wolf ate with me instead.”

The mention of the shinobi’s name made him colour surprisingly. Ema didn’t let on that she’d noticed. Still, she wondered. Genichiro was as stubborn as an ox, and had been ever since they were childhood playmates, and yet, he’d demonstrated no lingering ill will toward the man who had, against all odds, defeated him in the dojo a week ago. Lord and retainer scarcely spoke, but that was no different than before. What had changed was the nature of the silence.

“So… did you find anything else?” she asked.

Genichiro knuckled the sleep from his eyes and turned to gather the papers and his thoughts. “Yes, I did.” Ema settled down beside him as he began to go over his notes. “This here… it’s from Hideo’s diary. He was Lord Takeru’s page, do you remember?”

“Yes. He was a nosy ass.” She read the paper that Genichiro pushed in her direction and felt her initial optimism sink like a stone in her belly. “_‘Without it, your blood cannot be spilled…’_ I see. This is about…”

Perhaps it was just thinking about that time… a time when Lady Tomoe had still danced, and Takeru’s gentle flute playing had still drifted through the castle halls, and people had been, or seemed so in fleeting moments, something close to happy… it stirred in her a melancholy she had preferred to simply forget. 

“Even Hideo had no idea about that thing,” she finished, knowing her smile was wistful. 

“No one knew. But I found out.” Genichiro looked at her pointedly. “A blade that can bring death to the undying… Something that powerful, grandfather decided it was best kept hidden.”

The blade he was referring to had a name in the ancient texts—Open Gate. Genichiro had tailed the servant whom Isshin had entrusted with the task of hiding the frightful weapon, and had bought his silence in exchange for the knowledge of its hiding place. However, the poor man’s silence was soon made permanent: he had wound up dead only a day later. Ema had suspected Genichiro. It was a painful, sickening time; the first big sign that he was not her childhood playmate anymore, but a grown man, a player in a war far bigger than either of them.

“But grandfather wasn’t the only one who was there that day,” Genichiro continued, “Who witnessed the way Open Gate was used, the way it ended Tomoe’s life and give humanity back to Takeru…”

“The Owl,” Ema nodded. “But what does this have to do with the Hirata massacre? With Lord Kuro’s death?”

Genichiro ran a tired hand over his face as he exhaled, buying himself time before he put it forward: “I believe that Open Gate was the weapon that was used to kill him.”

Ema cast her eye over the veritable mess of timeworn books, ancient scrolls and loose pages that his searching had amassed: the chaos of it, yet at the same time, she knew that in Genichiro’s mind, there was a meticulous order here. She had seen him like this once before. Vanishing days, entire weeks, holed up in his own mind, not eating, scarcely sleeping, wasting his body away on his obsession. The first time, he had emerged a heretic, and he still bore the scars. This time, all he was coming away with was insanity.

“You’re saying _the Owl_ murdered Lord Kuro.” 

Genichiro saw the expression on her face, and a shadow fell like a curtain behind his eyes. “You don’t believe me.”

“It’s not… But what’s your proof? To cry murder upon the name of a dead man… You have to have your reasons, Gen…”

“The scent…” he said. He began rummaging for a document, and produced five all at once. More diary scraps, an oil painting, a scroll. “I smelled it that day in the Hirata manor. The same scent that lingered in the room where Tomoe and Takeru died.”

“Sakura blossoms?” Ema fought the urge to move away from him. The energy he was giving off… it made her skin prickle, like an alarm, real or imagined. “Takeru’s favourite incense. The petals from the Everblossom reminded him of home. He must have been burning it just before Tomoe took her life…”

“No, no—” he snapped, voice deepening now, “You’re not seeing the connection!”

She was not, so he showed her, drawing frantic lines with his finger between the painting of the warrior beneath a cherry tree, the note written in Tomoe’s soft handwriting, and the scroll, which told the story of the Dragon who had come from the West…

“Sakura are the symbol of immortality!” he surmised. “No—more than that—they are its essence.”

“I see.” She swallowed thickly. “And you smelled that same scent in the manor where Lord Kuro was found…” She was concerned, but… why would he lie? And even more so, why would he imagine such a thing?

The child… 

Of course she had not forgotten. It was, perhaps, the only truth about that day that Lord Isshin had allowed her to know. A young apprentice doctor, a lady only in name, yet the only one with the knowledge to care for an infant whom he could trust in any capacity.

She remembered Lord Isshin handing her the baby boy, so fresh he was still covered in his mother’s lifesblood; remembered accompanying the Owl on his return to the estate of Lord Hirata. She remembered, too, the curious ache she’d felt when handing that baby over, believing she would never see him again, yet knowing he had touched her life irrevocably. All of their lives—Ema’s, Owl’s, Isshin’s, Genichiro’s—everyone who knew of the power from which this tiny life was descended.

“I was told Tomoe had died giving birth to him…” She found the words hard to say, now. Was it ever easy to confront the knowledge of one’s own complicity? “But she was an old woman by then… It was a miracle he survived at all…”

“Exactly,” Genichiro said, his gaze intense and urgent. “She didn’t give him birth at all. Yet, he was born.”

“The blade that can open the very gates of the underworld,” she found herself saying, though her voice sounded far away. “Bathed in the Blood of the Dragon, it creates as it destroys…”

Genichiro nodded. The wind itself seemed to have stopped, and the dust lay heavy in the air. “You believe me now.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Grandfather knew from the beginning. So did Owl. And they knew the only thing that could have killed him was the Mortal Blade.”

“Now you’re suggesting Lord Isshin—!”

Genichiro grunted and stood with a sudden passion. The blanket fell from his shoulders, revealing the sleeping yukata she knew for a fact he hadn’t changed out of in two days. Still he went around the room, pulling more layers of clothing out of their carefully laundered chests.

“Well? Are you going somewhere?” She stood too, piqued now. “Will you confront your grandfather over your delusions, tear apart everything we’ve worked so hard to mend?”

His sneer was humourless. “If the blade is not where I left it… then yes. If it would mend the justice that’s been so broken by his complicity, I would tear down everything else.”

He headed for the door that led out of the library, and she stopped him with a shout. As soon as he stopped, she coloured, ashamed… _‘Like my mother…’_ Somehow she could not escape that, no matter how hard she tried.

“Gen…” She clenched her fists, forcing her voice to remain steady. “If you must leave, please say goodbye to Wolf.”

His eyes flashed wide for a moment. He didn’t respond, yet he was listening, it seemed, for the answer to a question he wouldn’t voice.

“Since that day,” she told him, forcing the words out, “He’s been getting up in the mornings. He’s been eating better. He’s getting stronger at last. As his master… you need to accept your hand in that. For once, that wasn’t my doing!”

Genichiro’s glare tapered out into what was more of a bewildered scowl. As stubborn as ever, she thought, to admit to his own successes as much as to his own failures. But at last he nodded, and as he descended from the tower, she knew exactly what it was about the shinobi that reminded Genichiro of himself. She felt it too. It was hard not to, to watch someone come back from the brink of death and have to find what was left of themselves from the pieces.

As she knelt by the abandoned reading desk, gaze vacantly taking in the chaos of Genichiro’s search but not quite seeing it, her mind raced.

Lord Kuro’s body had sprung from the spilled Blood of the Dragon, but his soul… Did he remember anything of who he was before? It was too late, now, to ever know. The answers had died with him.

But if Genichiro’s suspicion was correct, what cause had Owl had to _kill_ a Divine Heir? And why now, nine years after he had witnessed his unhallowed birth… If, indeed, it had been Owl at all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> behold, the valley where my crack theories pool deeply


	5. The Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for mild voyeurism, ig

A single taper lit the hallway adjoining Genichiro’s room and that which had been given to the shinobi in his service. Beyond the shoji door, all was pitch dark, but the Ashina Lord waited, watching for a sign of the missing retainer coming back.

It was not long before he heard it—the shuffling, uneven gait of the man’s approach. How unlike him. Usually, he was catlike in his quiet, even in the dark, often catching Genichiro off guard when the night hours brought them into necessary proximity.

When Wolf appeared in the opposite doorway, it became clear: the man was drunk. He staggered round the corner and rested against the doorframe for a minute, remaining in an unsteady sway even after slipping off his sandals, those faintly-glowing eyes rolling and unfocused.

Genichiro decided to stay hidden, and peered through the narrow opening of the door. Wolf did not seem to notice his presence, or if he did, he didn’t acknowledge it. He looked faintly annoyed. This loss of composure, of control even, seemed as unwelcome as it was unfamiliar; Genichiro wasn’t sure, himself. How would Wolf respond to him now? He didn’t think he could bear the sight of him kneeling in this state, trying to act sober and solemn when his lord knew full well that wasn’t the case… Gathering himself with a grunt, the shinobi slapped his own cheek a few times before making it the last few paces to the futon at the edge of the room. There, he began to undress.

The second-hand clothes were already loose; the ease with which the faded shitagi slid to the floor was almost comical. The heavier hakama, their lacings fumbled with for a while longer, pooled on top soon after.

…Wolf’s height was deceptive. Every inch of his body was tightly packed with lean muscle, sculpted around a frame any warrior would be proud of, not to mention the collection of scars threaded across his skin, testament to what must have been decades of dedication to his art… It was curious that the flesh just above his buttock still dimpled when he rested his hand upon it and stretched, so every vertebra in his spine popped, and the skin there dimpled too, as if in response to its master’s unspoken command. Of course, after the stretch came the inevitable blood-rush: heady and intoxicating.

Wolf really had no idea he was there. If he had, he would surely not have rolled into bed without his blanket. Surely his hands wouldn’t have begun to roam over the planes of his own body, mindless and immodest, devoid of direction or even of shame. 

Why was Genichiro still watching?

He tore himself away from the opening in the door—and promptly knocked over the taper resting in its bowl. Blind panic was all that stopped him from swearing out loud as he quickly snuffed out the flame to keep it from catching catastrophically on the hardwood floor. Then he shuffled back into his room and slammed the door shut behind him. It was pitch black in his own bedroom, but he sat there motionless for a few moments, regaining his breath and a semblance of propriety. His heart was pounding against his ribcage. His tongue had turned to a wad of cotton. Had Wolf heard? Did he know?

When he felt, as well as he could be sure, that his composure had returned, Genichiro took a fresh candle back to the door. He announced himself. Slid the door open.

He wasn’t sure why he had expected the shinobi to be fully-dressed again, down on one knee, his head bowed in readiness—as though the glimpse his lord had stolen of his most intimate self had been merely a mirage, a brief dream, conveniently erased from either of their memories…

Wolf was now curled up on his side, half under cover of a duvet, and shivering like a leaf. For a moment Genichiro thought he was covering his ears, until he realised it was his neck to which both hands were pressed, as if to seal in any remaining warmth. He did not respond to Genichiro’s entrance, so cautiously, he stepped into the room. It was not too cold. Rather he suspected the shakes were the fault of too much sake. Resentment toward his grandfather bubbled up like an old rust. He swallowed it down. 

The shinobi finally acknowledged his presence. Rolling half-way open, his gaze fixed on the shadow of the man in his doorway and there remained, heavy-lidded and distant, like one lost in pleasure. Genichiro stepped closer. Right up to him, in fact. This time he was the one who knelt.

_I’m leaving, shinobi._ That was what he meant to say. But breaking this softly rustling silence felt like a sin.

A drop of sweat rolled, quivering, along the length of Wolf’s jaw. Something inspired Genichiro to wipe it away. Something else—he suspected madness—possessed his fingertips to explore further, across the lightly stubbled angle of the chin, skirting the boundaries of a thin lip. The mouth opened under his touch. Hot breath misted his palm.

This was wrong.

He moved on quickly, but couldn’t take his hand away just yet, finding a new pattern to trace along the strong brush strokes of the man’s brow, then travelling up to the place his hair began, first with short, soft wisps, like a bird’s down, and then the rest: dishevelled from the night, but surprisingly soft. He noticed the grey strands scattered like salt amongst the black. Gently, his thumb drew a line from temple to temple and back again. That was when a realisation struck him. He could hold this man’s skull in his hand like a swallow’s egg. 

And inexplicably, the furrow between Wolf’s brow had smoothed out.

This was _insanity._

He snatched his hand away as though burned by a flame and grabbed up the candle again. Hot wax dripped over his knuckles in his haste, but he didn’t care. He remembered when he reached the dividing door that he was supposed to say his farewells, but by then, it felt too late to turn back and to do so would have spelled ruin. The shoji sealed him safely inside, as secure in his imagination as a whole wall of _ofuda_, alone with a silence unbroken save for the pounding of his heart, which this time had worked its way into his throat. Lying in his own bed, he tried to choke it back down, the feeling akin to nausea. Shame, he supposed. But as he lay in the half-dark, willing sleep to take him somewhere—anywhere—that was not this suddenly-small adjoining room at the top of the castle, Genichiro Ashina’s mind and eye remained transfixed upon the door.


	6. By His Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the delay, i was sick for a while and then i got into a weird loop of not being able to finish the chapter and feeling too nervous to post it as-is, but i finally accepted this is as good (and as BIG) as it's gonna get. have 5k words of tense bonding~

Wolf was anxious for his master to return. Their mutual reticence notwithstanding, it was unusual not to feel the presence of the lord hovering on the edges of his day to day life. Knowing that Genichiro could show up at any time to check on his progress with Ito, or in the middle of his shared meals with Ema (though he never stayed long) had quickly become the norm, keeping Wolf on his toes. Keeping him expectant and guessing when, or if, he would pass comment on the way he had been carrying out the only real order he had been given so far. Insofar as words went, he was not a generous master. So with Lord Genichiro gone, the shinobi’s lack of direction was felt twofold.

At least he was not missing the unpleasant drop his stomach took every time his enigmatic master deigned to appear.

Ema noticed his restlessness, and since the cruciform wound across his chest had so swiftly healed, she began putting him through some drills of her own. His suspicions proved true—she was a masterful swordswoman, quick, graceful, and capable of punishing his mistakes with surprising brutality. Her grasp of the Ashina sword style, in fact, surpassed Genichiro’s own. Yet Wolf did not feel he’d earned the right to study it. All he could do was learn how to avoid, combat and counter the moves she threw at him. He would never again be the way he had been two weeks ago, wounded and unwilling even to pick himself up when he fell.

That also meant he had stopped smelling sakura flowers… except in dreams. In dreams, the scent, and his first master’s voice, were clinging ghosts. He hadn’t figured out what it meant, but had little time in the day to dwell. Ema had not taken over from the training Ito already gave him—she merely filled the extra time that he would have normally spent resting. 

So by the time the horns sounded Lord Genichiro’s return to the castle, Wolf was exhausted. He and Ema finally paused in their exercises to stand panting by the window in the dojo wall, watching the ascent of the small band of riders through the fortress toward the moat: two mounted scouts, led by Genichiro, who cut an even more imposing figure when astride his black warhorse. The expedition had only been reconnaissance, and from here at least, his master appeared unhurt.

“I should bathe,” Wolf realised quickly. He hadn’t been ordered to since that very first night, but the nature of the command had left an impression on him.

Ema took a long, narrow look at her sparring partner as she sheathed her sword for the day. “No…” she mused. “Leave it.”

He stopped dabbing a towel over his reddened face and looked down at himself, at the mess the past few days had made of him—dust and dirt smeared over his limbs and face, a crust of blood under his fingernails, sweat darkening his clothes—and shook his head. “I can’t attend my lord like this.”

He reached for the tasuki binding his sleeves back, which was when Ema stopped him, her chilly touch pressing ever so slightly into the muscle of his upper arm. He fought the urge to shiver, though he was more than warm. “Leave it,” she said again, not ungently. “It would be worse if you were late.”

He finally nodded acquiescence, but found himself fighting down a twinge of anxiety as he went to greet his master.

* * *

The Wolf had been working hard.

Aside from the sheen of sweat on his forehead, or the flush of his cheekbones, his arms alone were testament to that… was Genichiro only imagining that the sleeves had been purposefully tied back to display the contours of muscle and the veins standing out on his wrists? He studied his shinobi’s face, searching for the minute giveaway signs of intrigue, contrivance… for even the slightest hint of daring. He was illegible.

“Is my lord displeased?”

It was only then that Genichiro realised he was sporting a murderous glare. His mother would have reprimanded him—told him to wipe that frown off of his face before the wind changed direction and he was stuck like that for good. Maybe she had been right all those years. He shook his head and gestured for the shinobi to rise. “No. I have a mission for you. I’m riding out tomorrow for two days, and you’ll accompany me.”

Wolf blinked twice, waiting momentarily for more. And momentarily, Genichiro considered telling him… about why he had suspected him of murder, and how wrong he had been… about his former lord… about the Mortal Blades—the black, which Genichiro had just found, still contained safely in the place it had been hidden nine years ago, and the red, which was where their journey would take them now… In the end, he told the shinobi nothing, except to be ready at dawn.

After parting they didn’t speak again. However, Genichiro carried the Wolf around with him for the rest of the day in some grating, unshakeable form. The image of the man kneeling below him, that damnably hangdog expression on his face, had its teeth sunk in deep… as did the memory of that same frown vanishing under Genichiro’s secretive touch.

It was making his old scars ache.

* * *

Ema found him in the library just before midnight, hunched over the collection of documents he couldn’t have left without reading one last time.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving again,” she tutted, handing Genichiro a small bamboo box.

He raised an eyebrow at the now-cold rice and pickles inside. “For the morning?”

“No…” she replied, the gentle jibe glinting unspoken in her eyes. “It’s for the meals you missed today.”

“Thank you,” he muttered, and silence fell between them as he stared at the journal page, the meanings behind the brush strokes by now muddled and obscure.

“You’re still sure about this,” said his childhood friend; it was not a question. 

Genichiro sighed. “No. I’m not. The black one was still in its hiding place, no sign of the wards having been breached. So, I’m only sure that the Owl… or whoever it was that did this… didn’t use that blade. But there’s still the other one…”

“There could be other ways to harm those with the Dragon’s Heritage,” Ema mused. “Or—” and he sensed this was her preferred answer, despite the regret in her tone—“Perhaps you were wrong about Lord Kuro. Perhaps… he was just a normal boy. The victim of a mindless attack from lawless thugs.”

He shook his head, running a finger over the painted border of an ancient scroll. A callused tip scratched against the delicate detailing there—the symbology of the sakura blossom. It was everywhere.

Sometimes he even thought he saw it in the shinobi… or rather, in stolen glimpses of wine-flushed skin that came back to play on his mind. And, perhaps, in the pigment of the scar that should have killed him, chiselled as it was, as though by the loving hand of a sculptor, into the hollow of his breastbone.

“I will get to the bottom of this,” Genichiro murmured. “No matter how long it takes.”

“Is that why you’re taking Wolf with you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked impassively.

“You’re hoping he’ll reveal something you missed, remember something he’d forgotten, that might piece this all together for you.” Genichiro did not meet Ema’s gaze, but could feel her eyes upon him, diagnostic and unmerciful. “In that way, Wolf just serves as another part of your obsession…”

He did look at her then, forcing a shred of laughter even as his forehead knitted. “I don’t know where you get the idea that I’m obsessed.” Searching Ema’s familiar face for that old flicker of humour, he found nothing, not even remorse for having spoken so out of turn. One who was so close to him, showing nothing of her true thoughts except for the impossible distance he would have to cross to reach them. _Just like the other one._ He snapped, then, overcome. “This is a matter of _justice_! Am I the only one who cares?!”

“Is it?” Her hand tightly gripped her wrist where it lay in her lap. “Or is it a matter of control?”

Genichiro let the breath escape slowly through his nose, straightening his fists out into flat palms, carefully undoing the tension that had been winding his body like a screw since the moment he had returned. _Control._ Why did he feel that was being taken from him at every turn? “You speak too freely, Ema.”

“I am the only one who dares to.”

They both snickered softly, almost humourlessly, and Genichiro rolled his eyes up to the beamed ceiling. Once they would have laughed, falling apart from the mirth of it all—he, who was almost her brother, trying to lord it over her? They could not have play-acted it better. Not now, though.

“I’m not saying this for your sake,” said Ema, placing a hand on his arm rather firmly. “I’m saying it for his. Losing the young lord almost killed him too. Such is his sense of loyalty… He doesn’t deserve someone who would toy with that loyalty.”

Genichiro nodded, trying to keep his expression otherwise neutral, despite the heat creeping into his ears. Ema was astute. He hoped she had not read anything into his fixation with the issue of the Dragon’s Blood… and, by extension, with the shinobi.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” she continued. “Like a text you can’t figure out, and would rather burn than try. But you do care for him. For his life. If you didn’t, you would not have been prepared to kill him that day in the dojo.”

He nodded again, lips pursed. “You are asking me not to put his mortality to the test. To see if his master truly did imbue him with the Dragon’s Blood.”

“Gen…” Ema frowned at that and averted her eyes, casting them over the sum of his research: books spread open with their spines cracked, pages torn free of their bindings. “I believe Wolf will do anything that you ask of him. All I’m asking is that you be kind.”

_He will do anything that you ask of him._ After bidding her goodnight, he took those words to bed, worrying them between his teeth as he lay sleeplessly upon his futon, staring at the door that separated him and his shinobi. How far would he go, if he were only asked, to provide Genichiro with the answers he sought?

* * *

The pony’s flanks shifted under his thighs and the bridge shifted under the pony’s feet and Wolf quickly reined in a rush of instinct to ground himself. Many hundreds of miles below, the valley floor swayed, a sea of incongruously autumnal oranges and reds. 

“Perhaps we should walk the horses across, my lord,” he suggested, raising his voice for Genichiro to hear him over the mountain wind and the creaking of the bridge.

Ahead of him, the taller man nodded and dismounted… a little too heavily. As his foot came down a slat broke through with a shuddering _CRACK_, causing him to stumble hard into his mount’s side. Wolf was already swinging down from his own saddle when Genichiro’s short-tempered warhorse began to thrash, turning and knocking right into its master, almost bowling him over entirely; Genichiro held the reins in one hand and went to grab the mane by the other, but the horse was thrashing so wildly that he pulled right out of its master’s grip. The man, already off-balanced, already teetering, began to fall—

Wolf grabbed the warhorse’s reigns with one hand and caught the lapels of Genichiro’s cape with the other. For a moment it felt like being torn in two: the horse trying to pull both itself and him into the void, his lord struggling to regain his footing as he hung, suspended by Wolf’s arm alone, over the teetering precipice. But then he summoned his strength, dug in his heels, and with an unconscious yell hauled man and horse both into the safety of the middle of the bridge—such that it was. He let go of the horse first, placing both hands on his master’s elbows to steady him. Of the two, he was irreplaceable. 

Genichiro was panting hard, but shrugged him off as if with impatience. “Don’t ask,” he puffed, “I’m fine.” He simply nodded in acknowledgement that the smaller man had just saved his life. “Let’s… walk the horses.”

Wolf nodded back, then cautiously approached the black stallion. Though it had stopped thrashing now, seemingly aware of the risk it had posed to its own stupid life, it looked back at him with eyes ringed with white, ears flat against its head.

“There’s something spooking them,” he muttered, gently soothing the horse’s muscular neck with one palm. “Something on the air.”

“Oh?”

“It’s hard to tell.” Not a smell; Wolf closed his eyes and listened, trying to sift that strange strain of music from amidst the howling wind. It was reminiscent of the echo left by the ringing of a bell, but… something about it was _off._ He couldn’t have said why.

He looked back at Lord Genichiro, which was when he realised that the stumble had blown the hat clear off his head. Most likely it was still falling toward the distant valley floor.

“The snow is thick, my lord. You could catch cold.” Wolf untied the string of his own hat, a wide straw-woven cone, and held it up.

Genichiro looked at it like a wary child presented with a gift he wasn’t sure was free. It was, of course, but Wolf still felt like he was being _read_. That always sent a chill trickling down his neck. The taller man ran a hand through wind-bothered hair, scanning his shinobi’s face with narrowed eyes. It was the only time Wolf had seen him clearly, with his hair down like this, since the dojo. Except for… _Oh._ He pushed away the half-memory of dim candlelight and an impossibly gentle touch, lowering his gaze. It wasn’t until he did so that Genichiro snatched the hat from his hands and began securing its strings under his own chin. Another nod was all the shinobi received. He followed his lord across the rest of the bridge’s rickety length, gritting his teeth against the cold. He wished dearly for his scarf.

Once they’d safely touched down on the other side of the bridge, they paused for a moment to gather themselves before saddling up again, continuing on the ascent toward the temple. This peak was not so treacherously steep as the last one had been, nor so snowy. In fact, they soon found themselves riding past lush verges as green as summer, and though the wind still went straight through his travelling clothes, Wolf appreciated the early afternoon sun that graced this side of the range, winking in and out of sight between the canopy of cedar branches.

So this was Mount Kongo. Wolf had never visited before… although, from what he’d heard, not many had in recent years. The place had developed a sinister reputation. Pilgrims picked off by mountain beasts, or maybe fallen victim to rockfall or landslides. The monks had grown reclusive while visitors had grown scarce. No one was sure why, though judging by the state of that bridge, Wolf would not have been surprised if a few lives had been lost to strong winds. What cause had his master to come here?

“You are good with animals,” Lord Genichiro remarked as they climbed.

“It was part of my shinobi training, my lord, though not a large one. In truth I prefer it on foot.”

“Just as well, then.” Genichiro gestured up the slope, where between the trunks of the cedars, the first temple building could be glimpsed: possibly a gatehouse. “We’ll leave the horses here and make ourselves known.”

Having tethered their mounts to a sturdy tree trunk, they approached the gate, climbing a well-trodden cobble path lined with stone lanterns and Buddha effigies. Wolf glanced back over his shoulder; his pony raised its head and whinnied back at him, a high, alien sound, its ears flat. It was an unconscious reflex when his hand lifted to cover his bare neck.

Another, shriller sound drew his attention back to the path to the gatehouse, where he spied a flash of orange cloth emerging through the entrance. A single monk, carrying a shakujō in one hand, held the other in front of his face in prayer. The rings on the golden staff jangled as he walked, eyes closed, mumbling a steady chant. Lord Genichiro cleared his throat. The monk stopped dead. When his eyes opened, they were cloudy and off-white, like the film over a pot of overcooked rice. Despite the man’s blindness, Genichiro pressed his palms together and bowed in silent greeting. Something made Wolf pause before doing the same. But pausing allowed him to see the leer—subtle as smoke, but there—that bubbled over the monk’s colourless lips as both fists tightened around the shakujō.

Genichiro had not worn any armour for this visit; it was not a military expedition. He had not even granted Wolf a blade.

“We mean no harm to this holy place or those that live here,” the shinobi said hurriedly, moving to stand beside his lord and holding out a peaceful hand. The top of his head only came up to his shoulder, but it was mostly a gesture of support.

Lord Genichiro scowled down at him. “Shinobi, what are you—”

The monk moved, faster than either one of them could anticipate, more precisely than blindness should have allowed. The pointed end of the shakujō drove up into Genichiro’s clavicle. Wolf shoved himself in between lord and attacker, fending off the second strike from the staff’s metal butt. “Stop!” he yelled, even as the monk drew his weapon back once more. Without a blade, Wolf mentally relayed what he had learned years ago from Butterfly. Deflect with the back of the arm. With the leg. Strike with the elbow. You are never defenceless. Not when you make yourself a weapon.

The monk was relentless, dealing a flurry of blows with each end of the staff with startling elegance, but Wolf was quicker. It wasn’t too long before he had the monk disarmed and restrained in a chokehold. “What is the meaning of this?” he hissed in the monk’s ear. “We told you we meant no harm.”

His nostrils filled with the scent of rot. The man wheezed and struggled in his grasp, but made no reply. Wolf’s eyes met Genichiro’s, for just a moment, not long enough to read the reaction there, and then he felt the monk reach for something, and knew he had no choice. A sickening crunch of bone followed, and the monk fell limp to the ground, his neck twisted like a rope.

“What have you done?” There was a sigh behind Genichiro’s words, the only cue to an expressionless face.

“What had to be done…”

Recalling the harrowing trials of his mentor, Butterfly… the numbness in his arms foretelling bruises… and this, the first time taking a life since… Everything threatened to drag him back to that night, to the stench of smoke and blood blossoming in a pain so great it stopped his heart. He breathed hard, not so much out of exertion as from the urge to hide himself away somewhere—anywhere—that wasn’t this mountain path. He heard the chants of more monks close by.

The dead one twitched. The body, otherwise unmoving, rasped out a ragged, hollow moan. He was still alive. “Give me a blade,” Wolf barked, unable to temper the words with the right level of deference. “Please!”

Genichiro drew a katana, together with the saya it was sheathed in, from under his travelling cape. “Well… they have clearly gone insane up here,” he muttered, “I suspected as much.”

Wolf fought through the dryness in his mouth to speak. “Then we must leave, my lord. Your wound—”

“We cannot leave.” Standing over him now, the body between them, Genichiro narrowed his eyes. The attack had produced a small spot of blood that had seeped, flower-like, through his collar, but he showed little sign of pain. “I came here for a reason. One I intend to see to its end. A bunch of mad heretics are not going to get in my way.”

Genichiro grabbed his wrist. His hand alone dwarfed Wolf, and his skin was hot, shockingly so. But soon enough the cool lacquer of the saya was placed into his grasp and his fingers curled forcefully around it.

“Finish him off. Then we’ll be on our way.”

The sound of metal being drawn from wood was as familiar as breathing. The shinobi did not falter as he unsheathed the blade, nor when he gave it its first taste of blood.

* * *

“Satokiri,” Genichiro murmured softly. Crouching close together in the undergrowth, they were near enough for the lord’s breath to raise the hairs on the back of Wolf’s neck.

“My lord?”

“The sword’s name. It promises enlightenment with every cut. Little did I know it would come to this.”

Wolf was not entirely sure that was true, but would never dare voice such doubts. Lord Genichiro was entirely too calm, entirely too _prepared_, for him to have thought that the reclusive order at Senpou Temple still lived normal monastic lives… excepting the fact he’d left his armour behind, but even that had turned out to be a boon as they crept past the rest of the praying monks unseen and unheard. The absence of their brother from the gatehouse had apparently not yet been noticed. From their hiding spot, the two outsiders watched as a dozen of the saffron-robed figures began to file into the temple building. Inside, a gong was being struck, and the sound of chanting thinned.

“I don’t wish to tangle with any more of them on our way through,” whispered Genichiro, “But it looks like this is the only way in.”

“Unless you want to scale this,” Wolf added, nodding up at the crag that loomed over them, into which the temple building was nestled. There were plenty of handholds in the rock, and branchy roots that would make the ascent easier. He raised an eyebrow at Genichiro, who was squinting down at him with the shadow of a smirk. 

“So you do have a sense of humour.”

The tall man was no shinobi, but with enough upper strength anyone could lift their own body weight. So he assumed. Wolf turned his face away to hide his guilty eyes. 

Half of the monk procession was now inside the building, though it was impossible to see more from this angle. The gong must have been the signal for prayers; once the doors were closed, they would be shut out for potentially hours. “There’s too many to confront here if they’re all like the first…” Wolf mumbled, but then spotted something. He leaned closer to his lord and pointed along his line of sight. “There’s a hole in the ceiling of the entryway. We can climb into the roof space if we’re stealthy.”

Genichiro seemed to consider it for a moment, then grunted in approval. “We’ll manage.”

They waited until the last monk closed the door behind himself, and then crept out of cover. As tall as he was, Genichiro ended up needing little help from Wolf as he clambered into the hole in the roof (actually a loose grate), though the shinobi held onto his reservations about his ability to move silently. Climbing up after him, Wolf saw that they were in a dimly-lit gallery, populated by the towering figurines of five warriors choked with cobwebs. Not even in times of hardship had he known a temple to let their idols go to dust.

Still crouching by the hole, Genichiro jerked suddenly and something audibly _crunched_ under his fist. Wolf widened his eyes in alarm. The floor was swarming with large, black locusts, the sound of their rustling wings almost as loud as the thump. They crawled and hopped toward the two men inquisitively; Wolf swatted one climbing up his leg, but didn’t dare move much more. For all he knew this was the monks’ security system. He looked at Genichiro, whose face was creased in disgust, and put a finger to his lips.

The locusts seemed to be coming from an exit in the far wall, leading to a shadowed passageway which sloped downward. No rafters for them to manoeuvre, then. Maybe that was best. It was no easy task for the shinobi to toe his way around the locusts without cracking any more of them underfoot, let alone the taller man, but they made it to the end of the slope without making another peep. The hall beyond was resonant with the chanting of the monks. Wolf gestured for Genichiro to wait as he peered around the corner.

At first, the scene of prayer was innocuous. Facing the statue of the Buddha, perfectly in line and kneeling, the saffron-robed figures hummed their chants in unison through the haze of incense and candle smoke. An open window on the far side of the hall promised an opportunity for escape. But, Wolf couldn’t help but wonder in silence, what exactly was it that Lord Genichiro wanted here?

The chants were growing steadily louder as he scanned the hall for some clue. His gaze wandered back to the statue of… what he thought had been the Buddha, and widened in shock. It was not carven gold or even wood. The reality of it had no place in a sacred hall. The mouldering robes clothing this ‘statue’ shifted like dust as the legs of a dozen centipedes crawled in and out of desiccated flesh and marrowless bones. The monks, their chants fervent and swelling, were praying to this infested corpse. They were _worshipping it._

A terrible, rasping _screech_ from that very corpse brought the chanting to a crescendo, and then a halt, as the monks broke apart into reverential murmurs that Wolf could make no sense of—except for “hatching”, they were whispering. _Hatching._ A foul taste trickled down his throat. The sound of hollow bones cracking and popping apart broke through the chorus as, bursting from the chest of the corpse, a hundred spiny legs clawed their way through withered skin. The centipede—there was no trickery in the sight—huge and gorged in comparison, wound its way around its host, almost lovingly, and settled its beady head upon the shrivelled cast of the skull.

“What’s happening?” Genichiro hissed.

The monks were transfixed upon their foul worship. This was as good an opportunity as ever. “Heresy,” Wolf snarled, and grabbed his lord’s arm. Now was not the time for propriety. Creeping around the corner that had concealed them until now, he led the way across the back of the hall toward the open window. He realised all too late that the centipede itself was not blind. Its warning shriek was at once all too human and not recognisable as human at all. They leapt through the window, disappearing in a flurry of foreign cloth and barely restrained breaths. They were not followed.

* * *

“So,” Wolf growled, testing the edge of Satokiri on a thumbnail, “It’s worse than you thought.”

“Worse than madness?” Genichiro considered it. “Yes. They have not simply lost their minds, they seem to have forsaken everything they once held true to.”

But perhaps it was madness, at first, that had driven the High Priests down such a path. What else could force a person to give up everything in which they believed, and to perform such deeds with a clear mind?

The shinobi was still staring darkly at the pile of bodies they had found, tossed aside like refuse in one corner of the abandoned temple square. The skin of what may have been adults, but could just as easily have been children, was blackened by exposure, eyes eaten away. They had been lying for so long without a proper burial that the cords binding their hands were almost rotted to nothing. How cruel, Genichiro thought, for that freedom to have come so late.

“Jizo statues,” Wolf went on. Genichiro raised an eyebrow and the shinobi gestured roughly to the cluster of stone carvings under a nearby tree. “That’s what the effigies are. There’s hundreds of them.”

“So now we know where the pilgrims… and likely others… have been disappearing to,” Genichiro chewed his bottom lip in thought. “Though, why the bodies… Sacrifices? Offerings to their new cult? I have to find out more.”

“Where are the rest of the children?” Wolf murmured. His gaze, still shadowed, was far away. Genichiro sensed the question had not been for him.

Still, he answered. “That’s not what I came here for. You and I have something much more important to find, something I have reason to believe is being kept in the inner sanctum.”

“What is it?” It was unlike Wolf to be so bold. His stare was bold, too. It sent a small thrill through Genichiro, recognising the unveiled naivety of the question, its brazenness. Like he didn’t know how brusque he was. Just the same as when he had grabbed his arm.

“A blade that can kill the undying,” Genichiro explained. He watched the other man’s face carefully, looking for some flicker in his untempered scowl that would give his secrets away. But his eye caught only the tightening of the fist around the hilt of Satokiri. Perhaps some sympathy with the mention of a blade, nothing more.

“Undying?”

“Some call it ‘infested’. I’ve never seen one, but if the stories are true, there are those who could be stabbed through the heart, or have their head cut clean off, and still live. Some force sustains their body and keeps them from death, so… they are known as ‘undying’. The blade we seek is the only thing that could kill one.”

“Why do you seek it, my lord?”

Genichiro narrowed his eyes and watched the Wolf lower his. Another thrill went through him, one that made his fingers itch with energy even as he remembered the dull ache in his scars that had kept him up all night. _Is it a matter of control?_ He blinked Ema’s words out of his mind. 

“Not in order to use it,” he assured the shinobi. “It’s said the blade can’t be drawn.”

Still Wolf was inscrutable, neither raising his head nor questioning a final time. Perhaps his silence was a clue? No. Perhaps he was still afraid of his lord. Of his ability to take his life, if that was his desire. Genichiro felt his fist clenching as though seized by a magnetic impulse, and it took some effort to relax his muscles enough to walk past the shorter man without feeling like the proximity would set off an arc between them. For now, Wolf seemed content with his answer, and they headed toward the next bridge. This one seemed well-maintained; spanning another bottomless valley drop, it linked this lower temple complex with what looked to be another, larger one, sprawling up and across the summit of Mount Kongo. He knew the inner sanctum was at its heart. 

“Whatever lies in our way,” said Genichiro, meeting the shinobi’s dark gaze head-on, “I need to know that you are prepared to find a way around it, or else, cut through it. There are things I can’t tell you, about the blade I’m searching for, and why. But I need you to give me your word. Do I have it?”

There was no hesitation. “Your word is absolute.” Wolf bowed slightly. The afternoon light was waxing fuller, painting his brow and his long, straight nose in bold, golden strokes. Genichiro imagined, absently, lifting his chin; how the new stubble would feel against the sensitive pad of his thumb.

“Thank you,” he said, before he could ask himself why.

They crossed the bridge in silence.


	7. The Sanctum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i added in an extra building in the inner sanctum that doesn't exist in the game. it would be........ weird not to.

Senpou Temple had once been a peaceful place. For many years, it had received the deep appreciation and respect of the people from miles around, such that even when life began to spiral into chaos and no one had enough for themselves, the site was still the subject of generous donations and pilgrimages. In return, the monks offered benediction, and hard sugar candies. And hope.

It was difficult to imagine it now. Leaning against the heavy doors that they’d barred and bolted behind them, the two outsiders raggedly caught their breath. Wolf stepped gingerly on a lacerated ankle. Genichiro peered through the grate to make sure that the naginata-wielding monk who had done it wasn’t following them. Genichiro had cut the man almost in half, of course, but around here, that didn’t seem to mean much. They had encountered more of the centipede-infested corpses as they ventured further into the temple, and found that they weren’t corpses at all, but living men, subsisting as one with the worms that plagued them—and they had killed them too, only to find that they would not stay dead. This was what the Senpou monks worshipped now.

How curious that they had strayed so far from the path of Buddha.  
How curious that grandfather had seemed totally unaware all this time.

The coast seemed clear, so Genichiro stepped away from the door and turned to survey the new area they’d entered. Fresh air reached them through the sides of a covered wooden walkway, with steps leading down and to the left, out of sight. From somewhere came the sound of running water.

“I think this is the inner sanctum…” he breathed. “It must be.”

He began to descend the stairs and, as though tethered by a string, Wolf followed him—but he stumbled hard on the first step and gnashed back a grunt of pain. Blood soaked through cloth, dyeing his grey tabi black.

Genichiro grimaced in sympathy. “We can’t go much further like that.”

“It’s fine,” the shinobi growled. “I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“You were already engaged saving my back from the other two. The third bastard appeared out of nowhere. Completely blindsided both of us.”

Wolf looked at him from under a heavy brow even more creased than usual by one kind of unspeakable pain or another. “It won’t happen again,” he said, a little hoarsely.

“I am not a nine-year-old boy,” Genichiro said. “Yet you bested me in the dojo. As far as I can tell, in swords, we are equals. You’re not just here as my bodyguard.”

“Ten…” Wolf muttered. “Lord Kuro… would have been ten.”

Genichiro wasn’t sure what to say to that.

He busied his restless hands instead. Stupidly, he had left the pillbox Ema had given him with the horses, so he settled for tearing a strip from his sleeve and then knelt down. A makeshift bandage was tightly wound around Wolf’s ankle before he could protest. In seconds the pale blue cloth was deep red. There wasn’t much else he could do.

He raised his head. Still lowered to one knee, he found the shinobi’s face closer to his own than it had been since the dojo, and while this time his own blood wasn’t dripping back down onto him, he felt an echo, that same spark of tension all the same. Wolf swallowed dryly. The space between them was so tight, Genichiro would swear he could hear the lump travelling beneath the muscles of his lightly stubbled throat. Genichiro’s fingers itched to reach out and smooth the lines that pain had dragged into his face. He did not. It was not as though he was innocent of the act. Was he only a coward in the daylight, then? He stood up resignedly, watching his own shadow dwarf the man once more, and tried not to dwell on the way he had looked from below. On where that thought had almost taken him.

He cleared his throat. “I’m not Ema, but that should stop the worst of the bleeding.”

Wolf nodded tersely, his cheeks flushing. The vulnerability of it struck Genichiro like an arrow, but he forced himself to turn away before he could think better of not offering an arm in support, and began leading the way down the corridor. They moved slow on account of Wolf’s stoical limp. Anyone else, he’d have called it pride. Not this man.

When they reached the bottom of the steps, they were greeted by the sight of a lush clearing, dimly lit since the sun had sunk below the high crags enclosing it on every side; waterfalls cascaded down the crags into bubbling pools below. An outbuilding, maybe a small shrine, was nestled into the far corner, while the corridor turned toward a second room. Red acers and green ferns were the only living things in view.

Turning into the open doorway, however, they were greeted by the sight of a small figure kneeling on a pillow in front of a candlelit altar. For an instinctual moment Genichiro’s hand flew to the hilt of his sword. When his eyes met the figure’s, he stopped. It was a young girl, perhaps ten years of age, dressed in long silk robes. Her face, moon-pale and calm, was raised to the door as though she had been expecting them. Genichiro checked over his shoulder. Alone. Unfollowed. Satisfied, he stepped forward.

He began: “I am Genichiro Ashina. I mean you no harm. If you are being held here against your will—”

He was cut off. The child’s voice came like a pearl from her throat: polished and fully-realised, venerable beyond her years.

She demanded: “Why do you seek this place?”

“I…” Genichiro faltered. “Are you… not a hostage?”

Her clothing was heavy, layered silk; her hair was the same. As well as the plush pedestal upon which she sat, other cushions were dotted at the sides of the room, as though in an audience chamber. The image with which they were being presented was that of a noble lady in her own abode, not a scared child in a prison of the monks’ making.

“I am one of the children of this temple,” she said by way of answer. “I have watched you ever since you arrived at the gates. You cut a bloody path to find the inner sanctum. Tell me, what is your intent?”

Genichiro glanced down at Wolf, who was staring straight forward, frowning. The lord took a deep breath. “I seek the Mortal Blade.”

The child’s face had thus far been impassive, set into a doll-like serenity. Now she looked down at the ancient wooden casket laid out in front of her, and as she removed the lid, there was a sadness in her eyes.

Genichiro almost cried out in… relief? Shock? Perhaps it was anger he felt, descending within him like a mouthful of icewater, finally bringing a halt to the endless flow of his research, his suspicion, his travelling, his searching.

Because there it was. The blood-red sheath, its lacquer chipped with time’s passing, not with use. The Mortal Blade. Still safe in its prison.

“Do you know of the blade that cannot be drawn?”

Genichiro nodded, feeling a little giddy. “Yes, I… I do. Tell me. Has anyone else sought this? Has the blade come into the hands of any other?”

“Many have sought to wield the blade,” she said, in her eerie way, like an adult’s words being spoken through the throat of a child, “But none who have drawn it have ever survived.”

“None?”

“Never, in living memory. And for years, no one has tried,” she said, with what was almost a tone of apology. “Yet knowing this, you still wish to attempt it?”

Genichiro finally exhaled, audibly and deeply. “No. I do not. I had reason to believe the blade that cannot be drawn had somehow been used to perform a terrible deed. A heretical one. But I see now that I was wrong. I wish only that you keep it in your watchful care.”

It had remained here safely thus far, he thought, so what sense was there in removing it now? Only for him to obsess over… wondering, ‘what if’… 

“I see. And… I thank you.” The child smiled faintly and bent to replace the lid. “It would not bring me joy to witness the death of someone who thought they would be different…”

Genichiro heard a noise from beside him and turned his head, but Wolf was as inscrutable as ever. Had that been a breath of pain, or… had that been a laugh? Had what she said been funny…? He thought, though, there was a little abatement in the furrow of his brow.

“I see that you were wounded,” the girl said, “Though harm was not your intent… I am sorry. The monks of this temple have lost their way, and none knows that better than I.” She extended a hand to the cushions at the side of the room. “Still, they do not bother me in here. Please, I ask that you take shelter for the night. You can recover your strength in my sanctum, and then return safely home when the sun rises… This temple is no place for decent people.”

The offer seemed sincere. At any other temple or shrine Genichiro would not have questioned it, would have considered it nigh on heretical even to do so, but he noticed Wolf, too, checking over his shoulder more than once as they sat down on the cushions presented. They exchanged a glance, an understanding founded on shared experience absolving them of the need to speak it aloud—tonight, they would keep their blades close.

The girl took her leave and they watched her cross the clearing to the small outbuilding. Their silence continued for a few minutes, the serene sanctuary devoid of any other life, the candles upon the altar burning down in time with the setting sun. A few minutes for Genichiro to assess what he had learned, but… also to doubt it.

Finally Wolf broke the lull between them. His gruff voice was a welcome reprieve from the racing of Genichiro’s own untethered thoughts. “My lord, if I might be so bold.”

It had begun to spark a little excitement within him. From a man who spoke so little, boldness was coming to be seen as precious. Genichiro nodded, swallowing half-formed words.

“If it is true that the blade cannot be drawn, what made you think that someone had done so?”

“I do not know…” The tapestries depicting the buddhas and divine kings that Genichiro was staring at stared back, offering no answers to his straying mind. “I thought there was a way. Perhaps if one of the Undying themselves…” He trailed off, sighing so completely that he felt it in his wound. He should ask the child if she had any sake and rags with which to bind it, and Wolf’s, when she returned.

“You believe her?” asked Wolf.

He could not have said why, but he nodded. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was something hidden behind the shinobi’s question. Answers that Genichiro himself was seeking. About Lord Kuro… About himself…

From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Wolf was studying him, silently, like a text. He had been for quite a while.

He had never found audacity so thrilling.

The girl returned soon, carrying an improbably large tray for her size. Setting it in the middle of the tatami floor, she brought over two bowls of rice, a separate bowl each of what on closer inspection proved to be dried persimmons, and a bag of hard sugar candies. Genichiro didn’t care much for them, but was surprised by the discovery of flavours he hadn’t seen out in Ashina for years.

The meal was plain but sweet; even the rice tasted faintly of persimmons. Wolf ate his quickly but with curiously demure table manners; at one point Genichiro caught him hiding his mouth behind his hand as he chewed, a gesture that was probably supposed to be discreet but failed to escape his notice.

He fascinated him.

As they ate the child chatted to them, though she generally avoided the topic of herself, her role in the temple, or who—or where—the other children were. Instead she asked for news of the world outside. Genichiro hardly thought discussions of war were any kind of talk for a young girl, but Wolf picked up the slack with disarming eloquence. The voice he used when telling the girl about the late winter, the good harvest, and the group of _komusō_ monks that had travelled through the Hirata estate for the Dragonspring Pilgrimage, playing their flutes and begging alms, was completely different to any voice that Genichiro had heard him use before. A distant sadness crept into it at the mention of Hirata. Genichiro knew the name of the shadow that passed behind his eyes. All of these things were memories of a year now ending, of a life in ashes.

Still, the girl was entranced by the stories he told, by the gentleness in him, and she smiled brightly at each detail of the monks’ basketed heads and at his hesitant recital of the tune to _hi fu mi, hachi gaeshi._ At this, she retrieved a _shakuhachi_ from some corner of the room, asking that Wolf replicate the tune upon the flute. The man was diffident, but Genichiro tried to see what he could remember of his own, brief childhood tutelage. As it turned out, that wasn’t much, and the girl muffled a giggle at his clumsy off-key playing and helplessly strained cheeks. It was the first real glimmer of youthfulness she’d displayed.

“Very good, my lord,” said Wolf.

Genichiro smirked down at the stoic little man. “You don’t have to say that. I know it’s bad.”

The shinobi dipped his head.

“Will I never squeeze a smile out of you?”

There was no answer, either in word or deed, and Wolf kept his face tilted down, only his reddened ears on display. The surprise that Genichiro felt this time sinking into his stomach was not a pleasant one. 

He handed the _shakuhachi_ back to the girl, who closed her eyes and began to play, filling the quiet sanctum with the flute’s soft melodic whispering. Genichiro could not tell if the notes or the timing were right or not—the tune was unfamiliar, as though it came from far away, or perhaps her own head—but regardless, there was something lulling and dreamlike in the odd cadence of her song.

“Do you want that?” A furtive, rough-shod inquiry.

Wolf had raised his head, just slightly, enough for him to eye the last candy that lay pinched, melting and forgotten, in the vice of Genichiro’s forefinger and thumb. It was pale green, spearmint if he recalled. Only a child would ask after such a thing. But if it would soothe his petulance… why not indulge it?

“…No.”

He held out the sugar. Wolf raised his hand, as if to receive it. But Genichiro’s own fingers kept moving, past the open receptable of the palm, towards his face.

“Here.” He touched the candy to his mouth.

Wolf’s lips parted even as his body visibly tensed, brow twinging at the undue intrusion. Genichiro placed the sugar inside. Teeth grazed his knuckles, but here was the heart of it: the alien intrigue of another person’s tongue rasping against his skin, the hot, wet walls of the cheeks tightening to his touch… Not just any other person. His shinobi. Half-glazed eyes met his and he didn’t think he’d ever seen a shade of brown so sweet.

The last smear of slickened sugar dragged across the lower lip as he withdrew his fingers, then was gone. His heart was pounding. Wolf’s mouth snapped shut a second later. When he crunched down Genichiro imagined how in another life it could so easily have been his fingerbone, and yet the only remainder of the moment in which he’d had his hand in the jaws of a wolf was a residual stickiness between his digits. He slipped the thumb between his lips and sucked. Tasted his own pulse. There was something else, too, more precious than sugar.

“Thank you,” Wolf murmured.

“Of course.”

The girl playing the flute came to the end of her piece before finally opening her eyes, and she hummed a smile of satisfaction as her guests clapped softly.

“Forgive me,” she said, “I am tired. I was not playing my best.”

“No, it was very good,” Genichiro told her in earnest.

“Well… thank you. But you must be tired too. What a long day it has been. And strange. I do not often have visitors.”

“Now would be a good time to retire?” He looked down at Wolf, but the other man said nothing, only gazed back, reticent and deferential. His lip was still glossy. 

“I will sleep here, but you two can take the kitchen.” The child indicated the small outbuilding across the way. “There are futons in the closet there, and it is much warmer because of the hearth.”

“This is very considerate of you.”

“It’s nice to have guests. You can bathe too if you like.”

“There’s no need to draw up a bath.”

“Correct,” she said through a smile, “The pools here are fine. They are not cold. The waters will also soothe your wounds.”

“I meant to ask…”

“Yes?”

Genichiro paused, frowned and tentatively explored the area of his collarbone. He had not asked about treating their wounds because… since they had sat down to eat, the wound had not given him any pain. The muscle soreness accumulated by the day’s riding and the scrapes with the temple madmen had also abated, more than could be explained by a simple half-hour’s rest on a silk cushion. He thanked the child a final time and took his leave with a shallow bow. He wasn’t sure who this child truly was, or what she was truly capable of… but she had healed them and offered them shelter, and somehow that felt like enough. Wolf did not limp so heavily as they made their way to the pools.

Genichiro trusted in the child’s honesty full well when he stripped off his sandals and tabi and dipped a toe into the depths of the water. These were no hot springs, but the temperature was curiously void—just warm enough so as to be almost of an essence with the air itself.

“It’s good.” He shrugged the travelling cape off his shoulders, untied the scabbard from his belt sash and placed both alongside the discarded sandals, then stopped. He looked to his shinobi, hands paused at his waist. “Will you…?”

Wolf remained a distance from the bank, unmoving. “I will watch… Keep watch.”

“You’ll watch the door we barred and bolted?”

“Yes. I will keep watch, my lord.”

Genichiro repressed a smile. “…You can watch, if you like.”

He did not wait for a reply, nor look over his shoulder as he stripped down completely and stepped deeper into the pool, but he believed he felt the heat of an unseen gaze on his bare back. Despite the water, he felt himself growing warm.

They took turns, rinsing the blood and sweat from their bodies under the fresh cascade, and soaking their outer and undergarments in the current. This was more than either of them could have hoped for.

What else had he hoped for? He had known what he was doing. He knew still. That was the shame of it, he supposed. Yet, walking toward the warmly lit room which they’d been given, wrapped in a single robe he’d kept dry for the night, he felt at least a little cleansed of that stain. If only for now.


	8. Loyalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hammered this out in one day and edited as best i could in another. please forgive any mistakes, and enjoy :}

“There’s only one futon.”

Wolf paused in his task of hanging their scrubbed and sodden clothing over the rack beside the hearth. Night had fully descended, filling the hollow bowl of the sanctum with a warm darkness, and making the dying kitchen fire their only source of light. He turned now and, by its glow, observed Lord Genichiro where he sat, cross-legged, leaning his arm on a folded duvet and running a towel over his loose hair. Despite his casual undress, there was almost an awkwardness about him. The tall man looked too angular, too sharp and bulky, against the futon’s cushiony whiteness. Even that was too small for him. One hand absently picked at the threading.

Wolf shrugged, leashing his gaze. “I’m fine with the floor.”

He hadn’t planned on resting anyway. There was a wakefulness in him, a lingering energy that foreclosed sleep. He told himself he was used to being on guard.

He was smoothing out the last of the creases in their wet clothes when the voice summoned him over. 

“Come.”

Gentleness hadn’t been often granted by his new, enigmatic master; he was a warlord, not a sheltered boy. So the soft strain in Genichiro’s voice now made him wary.

No. Wary was the wrong word, he thought as he walked over, conscious of how poorly the thin cotton shitagi covered him. He wasn’t sure what the word was. He just knew he could not meet the other man’s eye as he lowered himself to one knee.

“Sit here,” said Genichiro, patting the futon to his right.

Wolf did not want to refuse. The mattress was fresh and soft and he found himself mirroring the position of his lord, legs folded like a knot, head still dipped toward the floor. Genichiro’s knee was just grazing his.

The lord placed one hand flat on the futon, palm facing up.

“Show me your ankle,” he said.

It took Wolf a moment to realise what he had meant. The wound had not pained him in over an hour, and though he’d worn the bandage in the pool, no fresh blood had soaked through. Still, he obeyed, pivoting to allow his left foot to sit near, but not on, his master’s palm. He tensed when Genichiro took the foot into his hand. The skin was sensitive, but more importantly, it felt wrong. Tight-lipped, he allowed his lord’s fingers to untie the damp cloth and reveal the injury beneath.

“It’s already a scar,” whispered Genichiro. He laughed softly, a sound of astonishment, and traced a fingertip over the still-tender joint. Wolf forced himself to look down. He was right. All that was left of the deep laceration was a tight, silvery line across his ankle, a silent echo of temporary pain.

“How curious. She said the waters would soothe our wounds, but… I do not think that was it.” Genichiro tugged down the collar of his robe suddenly and grabbed Wolf’s hand. “How about mine?”

Genichiro’s skin was still shockingly hot. No matter where they were, that never changed. Wolf tried not to focus on it as he tentatively explored the area around his master’s collarbone, the place where the monk’s _shakujō_ had pierced his flesh, not as deeply as the naginata’s blade, and yet—

“Actually, my lord, this still needs some more time healing.”

“Is that so?”

“I’ll find something to cleanse it with. That should—”

He tried to rise, but Genichiro’s grip tightened sharply on his wrist. “Don’t.” He didn’t _snap_ the command, in fact he scarcely raised his voice, but there was a fierce urgency in it all the same. “I don’t… want you to.”

Wolf wished he could meet his gaze, wished he could seek the answers there, but their faces were too close, and he feared he was suddenly treading a very thin line, and he could not take his eyes off his own ankle, where Genichiro’s thumb was making slow circles across his shinobi’s skin.

“My lord…”

The other man’s voice was just as strained as his. But they were not, now, were they? Not restrained. Lord Genichiro had him pinioned, yet he felt, with a single question, he was finally being asked to make free with his own thoughts.

Genichiro murmured, “Do you know what it is that I want?”

Yet, for all that, Wolf could not reply. He swallowed his silence, knowing the answer. Yes. He knew what he meant. He meant the open glances at the pool. He meant the sugar that still stuck to his teeth, he meant the fingers in his mouth. He meant the night when Wolf had lain abed, too sake-addled to even perform his due courtesy as a retainer, and yet had still been shown a gentle hand. Perhaps he meant more than that, before this, before everything, perhaps he meant the very first moment he’d pulled him from the ashes, the moment he’d given him a reason to live.

Or maybe Wolf was imagining it all.

After all, why would his master desire such a thing? He was nothing. Nothing but a runt who had been left behind time and time again.

But then he said it. “I want… you.”

Wolf blinked up at him, lost. His heart was in his mouth. He felt dizzy. Genichiro’s own face was inscrutable, fine brows set into his habitual frown, lips tight—but Wolf knew it well enough to spot the change. Looking down his slight nose, roaming freely over his shinobi’s face, and lower, those dark eyes were no longer hiding anything under the pretence of propriety.

_Why,_ he thought? _Why me?_ And, “why?” he asked, out loud, sickening at the sound of his own voice, shaping itself clumsily around a plea.

“Because I do.” Genichiro exhaled strongly. “Because I don’t. I don’t have you.”

“You do.” Wolf balled his hand into a fist where it still lay pinioned against Genichiro’s chest. “I am yours. I am nothing but to carry out your will. Whatever you ask of me, I will do.”

“Is that all?”

_Is that all?_ Wolf squeezed his eyes shut. _What more?_

“What do you want, Wolf?” asked Genichiro, with desperate tenderness.

It was the first time he had used his name.

Wolf did not need to open his eyes to know that Genichiro had inched closer. Closer, now, than they had ever been, and that thought was almost too much. They were breathing each other’s air, and it was all he could think of, how much he wanted this, and how he wanted more. Genichiro’s scent: persimmons and salt. He swallowed and was full of it.

He said, “I want to please you.” It was not a lie.

Nothing had ever been closer to the truth.

“Then…” Genichiro sighed, and it stirred the loose strands of hair that had fallen across Wolf’s face. He wetted his lips, and then finished: “It would very much please me to kiss you.”

“Yes, my l—” 

Lips pressed down onto his. It could scarcely be called a kiss, indelicate and rough as it was, but it tasted the part: like sugar, unrefined. It was not how Wolf had imagined his lord to taste. He kept his eyes shut tight, focusing on the heavy breaths through his nose, on keeping his heart from tumbling out of his mouth. Then, on the way Genichiro’s lips felt. Still dry, slightly chapped. A shred of ignobility that somehow humbled him.

_Cold._ Genichiro had pulled back. Wolf finally opened his eyes, and everything had that hazy, sunburnt look that it took on after darkness. Even still, he could see that Genichiro was smirking down at him.

“It would also please me if you kissed back,” he murmured. 

Wolf flushed hotly, but did not apologise. Not in words. It was only when he reciprocated in kind that he could understand its worth—this battle of mouths, and… of teeth. When they bumped together Genichiro only snickered and released his grip on the wrist, placing it instead around his shinobi’s jaw, holding him still so he could take the lead. That was when he felt the other man’s tongue against his, tangling and tasting in kind. He’d never thought it could be so erotic.

His mouth was left dry and wanting as Genichiro broke away, trailing the tip of his tongue across Wolf’s lip as he withdrew. There was a warmth in his eyes, looking down at him from that still-unbreachable height. Maybe it was humour. Wolf dropped his gaze to where his lord’s hand still gripped his ankle, and tried not to think about the glint of amusement, or how his foot looked like a child’s in the man’s enormous grip. He wished he would kiss him again.

Instead Genichiro trailed his hand up his leg—slowly, savouring. At once, Wolf both envied and pitied his own shin. Every inch of it was knowing the warmth and curious gentleness of his lord’s touch, and yet was robbed of it in a second. The quandary was short-lived as the palm passed over a permanently bruised knee and wrapped around his inner thigh. Fingertips tickled the coarse hairs that grew there, and Wolf held his breath.

“Has a man ever touched you like this?” asked Genichiro.

“Yes,” Wolf answered, before he knew what he said. Now he was breathless and stumbling. “I… killed him for it.”

The hand was gone in an instant, and he knew he had made a mistake. He readied his apologies, his excuses, even as Genichiro asked hesitantly, “Are you… not interested in a male lover, then?”

Was that what this was? He had not said it to warn him away. To equate him with a stranger whose face he barely remembered. If anything, was it not a show of trust? A promise that nothing was further from his mind. Not with him.

Yet his heart still beat the same rhythm that it beat in fear.

He didn’t know how he felt, then. How he should feel. Genichiro’s palm was resting on his thigh, unassuming, its affections adjourned, but his face remained close, his persimmon-breath warming the tip of his nose, his chapped lips almost close enough to taste once again, if only Wolf dared to close the gap.

He felt… _Hot._

Almost shyly, then, he hooked a finger into the collar of his robe, and loosened the last barrier to his body. Genichiro was astute. He needed no further prompting to slip his hand inside, and no guidance to find the brown, cold-hardened bud of a nipple and tease it between his fingers. Wolf wondered how much guidance he’d needed to learn this for the first time, as he lowered his head and took it into his mouth, the prickle of new stubble chafing the smooth skin of his chest. Then a hand pushed him down onto the futon, and he wondered no more. 

What had he done to deserve such adoration? To be worshipped at like an altar. For his lord’s skilled mouth and hands to be the ones paying homage to his body while he lay as one drunk, useless and unknowing.

When it stopped, he cleared his eyes and watched as Genichiro settled himself onto his knees and pulled the smaller man’s thighs over his own, hooking them around his hips. Wolf’s shitagi slipped down and gathered at his waist, exposing an otherwise unmissable erection. He fought the urge to hide his face. In spite of everything there was still a worm of shame that crept in, unbidden. But then Genichiro was reaching for something. A tiny dish, resting on the nearby hearth. He dipped a finger. It was full of viscous liquid, smelling faintly of cypress trees. Hinoki oil. When and where had he found oil…? Right. They were in a temple.

Perhaps it ought to have felt wrong, then, when Genichiro slid the slickened finger between his cheeks. He teased and pressed against his entrance, exerting just enough pressure to make him want it, now, so much that when the tip finally pushed inside it met almost no resistance. If this was what _wrong_ felt like… Then he didn’t care. He bit his tongue, and trusted. The slender digit went a knuckle deep, then two knuckles, three. Queasy heat spread through his limbs as the finger retreated, drawing circles within him, and then was gone, only to be joined by a second a moment later. His breath caught in his throat at the new stretch. The twinned sensations flowed straight through his body, into his belly, into his cock, making it twitch in envy and sympathy, forcing his own fist to grip the mattress beneath him.

“Is this good?”

Wolf opened one eye he hadn’t realised he’d closed and found Genichiro’s face hovering over his. He thanked the divines it wasn’t softened with amusement, now, when his hand was doing what it was doing. He did not think he could have borne that. Instead he wore an expression he was familiar with—the hard angles of concentration—though only from afar. The proximity and the context now was jarring. Yet… he was handsome, in a way he hadn’t truly considered before. Sharp, cruel. Like a well-tempered sword. Wolf understood why he could look at the man for hours.

“Does it hurt?”

What was he supposed to say? The hands were bony but not unskilled, the feeling uncomfortable but not unpleasurable. In the end, he did not want to say anything that would make it stop.

Yet as he lay there dazed and deliberating, Genichiro’s fingers went still. Why—

“Wolf…” Genichiro sighed. “If you don’t talk to me, this will have to stop.”

Dread sank like a stone in his belly.

“Do you want me to stop, Wolf?”

His tone foreclosed any wrong answer. His eyes—black and bottomless in the half-light—searched his, flicking back and forth in an endless relay, waiting for his turn.

Wolf swallowed thickly, and his voice broke. “_No._”

And Genichiro smiled. “Good. You really do know how to please me.”

It was three fingers then, more oil, and a spot inside himself that made his eyes go white, and Genichiro’s lips upon his neck, his teeth grazing the skin, pulling ragged gasps from his throat, as his fists gripped vainly for purchase on cloth, on control… 

“What’s this?” his lord rumbled, hot against his skin. “I’m getting more of a reaction from your neck than I am from your ass…” Wolf could only pant feebly in response.

Genichiro withdrew his fingers all at once, making his muscles tighten at the loss, but he knew this was not the end. As he leaned back, Wolf could spy the hardness burgeoning under his lord’s all-too-thin robe. He had not been able to bring himself to look, when he’d stood naked in the pool, regardless of the fact he had been invited to do so. He’d been afraid of what he’d see. What he’d find himself desiring, fruitlessly. Another distant idol to paw over in his sleep.

But when Genichiro brushed aside his clothing to reveal the thick, rigid length of his cock, Wolf knew what he was meant to do.

Duty, or desire. He didn’t care to know what it was that made him roll onto his front, showing his backside in both submission and demand. Maybe it was instinct. All that mattered in the trembling interim was his desire, pressed between his belly and the futon below. The oil was quickly cooling on his cheeks. When he felt Genichiro’s large hands bear down on his back, his burning hardness laid between the crevice of his behind, the warmth momentarily felt like home.

Then came the dull stabbing. Wolf tensed up immediately, burying his head in his crossed arms. He knew this was supposed to hurt, and he had endured worse pain before. But…

“No,” Genichiro murmured into his ear, making him stiffen even further. His tone was firm, but not ungentle. “Don’t tense.”

“Y…es…” It was humiliating; the strain in his voice was audible to him, and likely his lord too.

But when Genichiro jabbed a smaller digit in—what felt like his thumb—it only worsened the matter as he bit back a hiss of sharp pain. He wanted to obey, but his body would not. Large hands repositioned him, once—pulling him up onto his hands and knees, but the angle here was even worse—twice—pushing him down flat again, his thighs pushed flush against his chest. He knew he was spread open like a book, but it was not enough. The head of Genichiro’s cock was thicker than three fingers. The more he tried to push it through, the more the inner ring of muscle seemed to close him out. The more it hurt. Wolf was glad his lord could not see his face, the guilty colour that pooled there, the clenching of his jaw. He was glad the moisture on his cheeks looked like sweat.

Just as he thought so, he felt a hand creep over the nape of his neck, into his hair. This alone, somehow newer and more intimate than anything else, made him tremble. Still slick with oil, Genichiro’s firm fingers tangled in the loose locks and pulled, gently craning his neck back until it would have been folly to try and resist, and then bent down to brush his lips against the shimmer of Wolf’s cheekbone.

“I won’t hurt you,” murmured a voice he wanted to believe. “I just need you to relax.”

Wolf nodded, as much as he was able. With his free hand, Genichiro was more liberal with the warm oil; the other threaded itself through his hair. Fingertips worked at his scalp. How long since he had known this kind of touch? He tried, in vain, to muffle the sound that betrayed the answer—_too long_—not a groan, but a growl, worked up rumbling by the gentle tug and pull of Genichiro’s skilled, slender fingers…

“_Please_…” he begged hoarsely, pushing his head deeper into his hand. Pushing himself harder against his lord.

It wasn’t until the taller man’s hips bumped against his own that he realised. He felt… full.

An ecstatic heat spread through his body, a burning that was not unpleasant, beginning in the very depths of his ass and thrumming through the length of his cock, which bobbed, rock-hard and dripping, against his belly.

“Good…” Genichiro hummed, pressing a kiss to his temple. The gesture sent a tremble through each of his limbs, making his buttocks clench around the full realisation of what he had allowed to happen. His master’s cock: totally submerged. Every inch of him was inside, so deep he felt he could feel the other man’s pulse.

He understood, now. Now, they could begin.

Yet the initial entrance, it seemed, was the extent of Lord Genichiro’s gentleness, as he yanked the smaller man’s head back, grabbed under his hip and rutted into him. _Hard._ Wolf bit down on his own lip to stifle the expletive that bubbled up in his mind.

“My lord…!” he groaned instead, feeling helpless, _surrendering to it_.

Genichiro only responded by gripping his hip harder and quickening his strokes. Wolf felt his eyes roll to the ceiling, overwhelmed. He knew he was being stretched and pounded raw, that he was barely fit for it, but his mind was not on the pain. Inside him, the head of his lord’s cock was brushing against that sweet spot, over and over, shattering his vision into bright sparks. _Shirikodama,_ he mouthed silently, like a prayer, like disbelief. He was fucking into his soul.

Wolf could not last long at this rate. He slipped a hand in between his belly and the bed, grasping his own cock in a clumsy, sweat-slick grip. The thought of spilling his seed over the clean futon brought a fresh flush to his face but it only made him giddy, driven on by the shame of it. If he was quick, he could finish without drawing attention—

Genichiro’s hand released his hair with a suddenness that made him wince and slammed around his guilty wrist, pinning it to the mattress. The lord made no sound but Wolf saw that his knuckles were white, stark white against the aged scars that covered his skin. Their scarred, filthy hands, soiling the bedsheet… They were both men of war. It made sense that their fucking would not be gentle either.

Genichiro pulled out of him slowly, roughly—like teasing out an arrow—until only the very tip remained inside, keeping the opening from soothing shut. He leaned in close, pressing the burning length of his chest against Wolf’s back and placing his lips to his ear. The sound of his voice alone was enough to pull a milky droplet from his cock, soaking the bed beneath him. But the words were what made his balls tighten and his blood course.

“You come when I say you can come. Understood?”

The man beneath him nodded, helpless.

“Good,” Lord Genichiro crooned.

And he sheathed himself in one go. Wolf _choked_. The size of him had not fully been appreciated until now, and it sent a fork of pain and pleasure right into the pit of his stomach. He was glad he was not on his knees still—the force of it may have made him collapse. Genichiro pulled out again, and again thrust his entire length into his gut. Wolf felt as though the breath was being knocked out of him. He could do nothing to control the ragged gasps that were ripped from his throat faster and faster as Genichiro hammered into him, taking his callow hole from _nothing_ to _everything_ with a savagery that drove him breathless.

His lord was no longer a silent force behind him, breathless himself as he finally sat back on his haunches and pulled Wolf up by the belt of his shitagi, settling the smaller man into his lap. “Now you,” he said, panting softly, and Wolf felt the effort rippling through Genichiro’s torso as he passed a hand over its muscular planes, exceeding boldness. He dared to reach lower, giving form to the feeling that had robbed him of sense: exploring the slick, engorged base of his master’s cock where it met his own body. It was impossibly intimate. Mere hours ago, he never would have imagined they’d be joined in this way. Genichiro made a sound: a grunt or a laugh, scoring his shoulder with his nails.

“Go on,” he coaxed. “_Impress me_.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Wolf planted his palms on the mattress, and rocked back.

A hand found its way into his hair again as he rode, mindless, scarcely knowing what he was doing, scarcely caring. Shyness felt futile now. His lord’s and his own wordless desire was all that mattered, adoration like a fire burning through his mind and leaving nothing but the white hot ashes of his former doubts.

This man was his master, and he would break himself upon his cock if it would please him to see it.

He drove his hips down in a frantic rhythm, impaling himself on the pleasure. He found the crux between them and chased it to a rapidly approaching end. His cock bounced helplessly in time with his thrusts. Genichiro was speaking to him, his nails digging into his back and his scalp. The ragged whisper was a command, he knew that, but the word was almost meaningless—_Come, Wolf. Come for me. Come._

“_Yes_,” was his reply, habitual now, warped by exertion and pleasure, almost unrecognisable.

And he loyally came. The climax ripped through him, a wave of heat that locked the muscles of his legs into a final, quaking sheath and left him quivering. The wet spurt splashed onto his belly, his leg, and the futon below… little that he cared. He was still coming as Genichiro leaned forward, spearing himself even deeper as he grabbed Wolf’s arms and pulled him back, holding him against his chest as he completed the few last upward thrusts into his trembling body, cock throbbing within as he followed him into climax. Wolf scarcely felt his master finish within him, but heard it. Gripping on as if for dear life, the sound that Genichiro poured into his ear was half a moan, half a strangled sob. Realisation dawned, and with it, relief.

He had pleased him well.

Freed from Genichiro’s vice grip, Wolf collapsed onto his side and finally caught his breath, feeling the night air wash over him and cool the sweat and the oil and the rest that soaked his spent, fresh-aching body. Maybe a minute passed to the sound of their recovering breaths. Unspeaking, eyes unmeeting. Wolf quickly became conscious of the fact he was lying in their mess, a discomfort that was little assuaged when a towel pressed against his rear as if to soak up the evidence of their impropriety. Perhaps it achieved that. It did nothing, however, to soothe the hollow burning that now grew within him. Not like a wound. He’d experienced that, surmounted that.

This was a phantom pain, his body lamenting the loss of what had, if only for a fleeting moment, felt like part of himself.

What a fool he was.

“Don’t mistake me, shinobi,” Genichiro said, stretching out on the futon behind him. His tone was casual, as though they’d done nothing more out of the ordinary than complete a training drill, or clean up after a meal. “Nothing has changed. This won’t happen again.”

Wolf blinked into the darkness, the fire long since having died. He felt empty.

“Of course… my lord.”

“Alright…” Genichiro grunted as he popped his joints and settled into an easy recline, facing the wall, the wood swallowing his voice and making him sound far away, even though mere inches separated the mirror of their backs. “Goodnight, then.”

Wolf said nothing, willing sleep to take him.


	9. Distance

It did happen again.

Somewhere in the vague in-between of night and dawn, sleeping and waking, their hands found each other, fumbling over half-shed clothing and sticky skin. No kisses, now. No time. It was as though they had awoken against their will from a fleeting dream and were racing to catch its memory before it faded like mist in the sun.

It was nothing like before. There was no pleasure in it this time, at least not for Wolf, still sore and aching from the first time. He didn’t care. Couldn’t find it in him. He felt empty and raw and used and he didn’t care.

The biggest difference was that he could see Genichiro’s face. Staring up at the man above him was like staring out of a window. Genichiro was blind in the dark; he had no idea that Wolf was not. There was a loneliness in it that came so easy, to observe someone this close as though they were far away, unreachable, oblivious in the distance. All he found in his master’s eyes was a profound lostness. So he felt lost too.

He wished he had the courage to reach out his hand. Just to touch him.

* * *

Wolf knew he had been dreaming as soon as the air hit his lungs like the smack of cold water after a fall. He was bolt upright, untangling his hands from the mess of their bodies to clutch at his throat, drawing blood in the absence of hands that weren’t there, had never been there, not for years. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the pitch dark—the kitchen, the embers in the hearth, the doorway framing the still, black pools—and clarity, if not calm, sank into him.

The dream had always been the same. Choking.

On smoke. On his own blood. Choking under the hands around his neck. Choking on the sick, sour taste of a stranger’s stain in his mouth.

Fear for his own life was a luxury only inflicted upon him in sleep.

Not this time. This time as his child’s body struggled against the weight of the man, his mind had been on Kuro. He’d known, somehow, in that vague but certain way that you did in dreams, that it was Kuro who was in danger. Kuro whom he was failing with every second that he lay there, fighting, failing. Choking. 

He was Kuro. And this time, there’d been no one in the dream to save him.

He staggered to his feet, taken aback by the unfamiliar weakness in his knees, but retained his poise, as well as his purpose. He’d wash, rinse his mouth with the water from the falls, wash again, make himself clean. He’d sharpen his sword. Cover his neck, somehow. Routine.

A hot-skinned hand grabbed his and pulled down. In the wake of the nightmare he was off guard and the resistance of his muscles came too late, and a second later he was falling hard, then kneeling on the futon beside the recumbent shadow of another body. An undignified echo.

“Where are you sneaking off to?”

Genichiro’s voice was husky and careless with sleep. When Wolf did not answer, the other hand raised and blindly searched for his face. It was Wolf that moved his chin into the gentle bowl of that scarred palm.

“You’re crying?”

Wolf wondered if he had meant it to come out as a question. The answer was right there under his thumb.

“No,” Wolf lied.

“What’s wrong.”

“Please, let me bathe.” He felt filthy. Soiled.

Genichiro let him go, like a bird thrust forcefully into the air, given up to a freedom that was also a sort of abandonment, to the elements and to fate.

* * *

Dawn descended, finding them hollow-eyed and already awake. They were fully dressed in their dry clothes before the girl appeared at the door to the kitchen, bright as the dew and bearing parting gifts: a bag of sugar candies; another of raw, fragrant rice. The fact that she would remain here while they walked free needed not to be spoken between lord and retainer for the wrongness of it to be clear as the day. Still she waved them off, her gesture not that of a child but of one full grown. The bearing of one who knew it too.

How much else did she know? Or think she knew. Perhaps she saw with eyes far clearer than either of theirs.

Back at the entrance to the temple grounds, their horses had disappeared, fled or eaten by predators, animal or human, there was no telling which. Not even this mystery and pitfall could inspire a word between them. On foot, then, they returned to Ashina, to home, though it felt no more familiar than the man with which it shared a name. A thousand unasked questions withered in Wolf’s mind as he stared at the back of Genichiro’s head. The lord walked with repose. This, not a question. But he wondered what it was like to know peace. 

In time, the undying trees fell away behind them, their colours of blood and shame forgotten. Ashina’s stone and snow took their place. Nothing had changed.


	10. The First Cut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's long. a lot happens. genichiro is still an idiot.

From the ridge overlooking Ashina, Genichiro’s home—the only one he’d ever known—looked little different than it had done when he had left it the previous dawn. Her stone-and-mortar walls stood steadfast. The curves of her castle’s peaked roofs caught the dying sun, aglow with moisture. A fine rain had fallen in the night and persisted through the day, washing away the worse smells of human habitation and giving rise to the scents of her acid soil, damp rocks, coursing waters, and the tall grasses and reeds for which she was named. Her heir breathed deep and felt something close to calm, even with the Wolf prowling at his back and everything that now went with him. Calmer, at least, than he had felt since some hours past.

Then he noticed the smoke rising in the south, and realised that all was not well.

Arriving from the north, he had no visual on the source, but found himself half-running the last leg of the journey. Wolf dutifully kept up with his pace, and both had worked up a fresh sweat by the time the great north gate came into view. This had been the site of Ashina’s largest cemetery since time immemorial. Today, the Mob’s crows were out in full force.

Bodies, piled together like rocks, almost blocked the path to the closed gates.

A handful of footsoldiers were doing their best to tend to the dead, but there were many of them, too many, the flies already gathering. The smell wasn’t too strong yet—whatever had happened could only have happened in the two days he was away—but it was still the smell of loss and of regret.

Genichiro caught his breath and grabbed the attention of the nearest living man. “I saw smoke in the south. What happened?”

The man had burns on his hands, the hems of his clothing singed. “The Takegata, my lord…”

“They attacked?”

“Yes, my lord… the Great Bridge…” His eyes were empty and wandering. “Thought we could hold, but… the fire… we couldn’t see it coming…”

Disbelief grasped Genichiro’s mind for only a moment before it was gone, passing over him like an ill omen, only to be replaced with dread.

General Kawarada met him inside the gates. The tall man was armoured but uninjured, and as he bowed, there was a caution in his lowered gaze, almost as though he was ashamed of what had come to pass. 

“Kawarada, will you tell me what’s going on?” Genichiro forced his voice steady.

They kept up a brisk pace through the castle town, talking as they went. “The Takegata hit our southern border four days ago, in the early morning,” the general began.

_Two full days before Genichiro had left for Mt. Kongo._ He instantly suspected the work of enemy scouts, but he’d kept his travel plans strictly secret. Spies in their midst, then? Or could it truly have been a coincidence? 

“When you say the border, you mean…”

“The farmlands.” Kawarada nodded, to Genichiro’s dismay and ire.

The contested territory lay on the Takegata side of the bridge, but the Ashina had wrested control of it years ago and had never failed to defend it before. “I heard something about the bridge,” he prompted, “I saw the smoke. Did the south fortress not hold? Tell me.”

“It… could not. The Takegata—”

Genichiro set his jaw. “That fortress provides a view of twenty miles over flat ground and the Takegata approached it head-on and I’m to understand the garrison wasn’t prepared?”

Under his menpō the general was beginning to sweat visibly. “My lord, as I hear it, they couldn’t prepare against… the fire. The Takegata came prepared in… unprecedented force. They have machines that spew the stuff like breath.”

The words took hold of his stomach and dropped it without warning, sending heat creeping through his muscles. Genichiro had to stop walking to gather his composure. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he took some deep breaths, but the air smelled faintly of decay and of smoke, and he could feel his extremities beginning to sharply _itch_. 

He was jolted out of the moment by something bumping into his chest, and he thrust an arm out forcefully on a reflex. It was an old woman who’d hobbled into their path, and she looked up at him half in a daze, giving him a brief glimpse of failing eyes and a pang of guilt that momentarily assuaged his anger. Although her ashy hair hung unkempt over her face, he recognised the crone. Inosuke Nogami’s mother. He had rescued her and her son from the burning Hirata Estate, just before finding the man who would go on to become his shinobi. A month must have passed since then. 

She showed no sign of knowing Genichiro, however, as she hunched past him to face the man ever at his tail. Wolf must have recognised her too. The Nogami widow murmured quietly to him in a tone Genichiro couldn’t catch, then handed the shinobi something from the pouch at her waist. Some scrap of metal and silk that jingled softly. Wolf said nothing, but took the thing with a sombre look in his eye. He looked gentle like this; the same way he had when speaking to the girl at the inner sanctum. The old woman hobbled off again, and Wolf met Genichiro’s eye fleetingly before lowering his head once more. He tucked whatever she’d given him into his obi.

Genichiro forced himself to keep walking, to keep his voice steady, and to not look at Kawarada while he held onto the brief rein of control he’d found on his anger. “So. The fortress was breached,” he surmised. “What next? They pushed us all the way back to the Great Bridge?”

The general followed the pace he set, continuing on the well-trodden ascent through the town. “It looked like it would go that way. Of course runners got the message back to us quick. We heard of the attack not long after you had left, my lord.”

Genichiro clenched his fist. That did not help.

Kawarada continued. “The Takegata weren’t putting the farmlands to fire, those were clearly what they were after. So, Lord Isshin sent out reinforcements, cavalry, meant to meet the Takegata in the field and drive them back to the southern border.”

_Grandfather._ He had been itching to meet their neighbours face-to-face for years now.

Genichiro’s voice threatened to shake like thunder when he said it out loud. “He led the charge, didn’t he?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And it failed.”

“I…” Kawarada faltered. They were almost at the main castle gate now and Genichiro’s calves were aching from the climb, hot sweat prickling his temple.

“_Spit it out._”

It all came out in a deafening rush.

“The reinforcements never reached the frontline. When Lord Isshin’s company crossed the bridge… There were explosions. It must have been sabotaged by enemy shinobi—gunpowder deposits, most like. The whole thing went up… The bridge collapsed.”

Grinding slowly apart, the main gates opened, Ashina Castle looming beyond. It did not look like home anymore. It looked like dread, and futility, and bare bones. Genichiro kept his eye fixed on the next door at the top of the path. He wanted to scream.

“Did any of the men make it over?” he asked instead, even while he dreaded the answer. 

“Yes!” Kawarada said with a snap, apparently glad to be able to give what passed for good news. “Lord Isshin is reported to have been seen making it to safety on the south side of the bridge, along with a… small number of men.”

Relief felt foolish. Genichiro did not know if the news was worse. If grandfather didn’t die behind what were now enemy lines—if he wasn’t already dead—he’d soon find himself under siege in the fort on the south side of the bridge. The Takegata and their fire on one side. The yawning chasm of the valley on the other. No imminent rescue.

Ashina’s heir paused before going through the gates, before approaching his ancestral seat. The one Lord Isshin had won through so much sweat and blood. It looked terrifyingly empty, even from here.

“How many other lives were lost?” he ventured.

“Hundreds,” Kawarada replied. “The Great Bridge was half a mile across, by the divines… What ill fortune—”

The general had decades of military experience and dozens of scars to prove it under all that armour, but as Genichiro rounded on him darkly, he watched the man wither like paper in rain.

“This was not _ill fortune_, you gutless idiot,” he growled. “This was the Takegata seeking to ruin us. They didn’t just want to capture our main food source, they wanted to cut us off from it entirely. And that’s what they managed to do, because we weren’t vigilant enough!”

The subordinate man nodded stiffly, his lips white. “Yes, Lord Genichiro.”

Genichiro looked him up and down, his pristine lamellar, the untarnished plate. He could have snapped him in two. “Return to your post. Make sure there’s nothing else escaping our notice on your side of the castle.”

Shame and rage were twisting his insides. By the time they reached the keep itself, he felt as though a storm god was using his skull as a drum and his hands were burning as though he’d held them too long over a fire. Wolf remained stoic, save for the incongruous jingle of his waistband.

“What did the old crone give you?” Genichiro asked him. He craved a distraction. Depended on it.

“Just some sort of trinket.”

“You shouldn’t accept things from strangers,” he muttered bitterly.

“My lord.” Wolf nodded, and Genichiro couldn’t help but hear those same two words spoken in another tone entirely. “I will throw it away, if it please you.”

Genichiro ran a hand over his face roughly, breathing deep. He was, almost, the lord of this land. As a very young man, he’d believed he knew what that meant—control, power, the ability to say and do whatever he liked—that arrogant, blissful age that had bloomed in between the desperate fear and platitudes of his childhood years, and everything that had followed. To return to such naivety would have made him unworthy, and yet… he missed it. He missed peace and simplicity. All he had now was regret.

There was nothing simple about the position in which Ashina now found herself. And bedding this man had not brought him peace, nor had it really made him happy. The closest he could get was to say nothing at all.

* * *

He felt underdressed and shabby in his travelling clothes, surrounded by his highest-ranking generals and their brightly lacquered armour. Shume, Matsumoto and two of the Yamauchi brothers were here. All of them had removed their kabuto in the war room, and each corner of the huge tactical map spread out on the table between them was held down by one of the helmets. Gyoubu barrelled in late and bowed so deeply to his commander that he almost touched the table with his reddened nose. His entire face was red, in fact, including the whites of his eyes. Genichiro nodded back and called the meeting into session without any further hesitation.

The faster they got through this, the faster he could ride out to the fallen bridge himself. His grandfather needed him to find a solution to this mess, and that was what he intended to do. 

It still dragged. Reports from the generals of the other border fortresses were sped through, just enough to assuage any fears of Ashina’s sudden vulnerability and ensure the Takegata weren’t working with some other rival clan. However, Shume wasn’t confident about their campaign against the Iwage clan to the east. Their enemy had gotten less aggressive with the onset of winter, but the frontlines were starving—if the Ashina were to push on, there would be no better time than now, but they needed more men, more reliable supply.

Genichiro nodded, breathed deeply as if to reconcile that information in his chest, and then asked Gyoubu to speak. This would be the worst of it now.

The giant of a man shrugged the fur cloak on his shoulders straight with the gravity of one adjusting a much greater burden. His voice was hoarser than usual. “Genichiro, where do I start?”

“Start from when you approached the Great Bridge from Ashina’s side. Did everything look normal?”

“It was raining, there was a mist rising up from the valley below, but… yes, it looked normal from what we could see.” Gyoubu wiped his nose on his palm. “I was in the rearguard, though, I didn’t get the first look. That was Lord Isshin at the van. All I saw, was… the sound, like thunder, flash of light, the fire. Then the ranks in front of me tilting and falling away. A few feet further and I could have gone down with them…”

“The only ones to blame for the sabotage of the Great Bridge are the Takegata,” the younger of the two Yamauchi brothers, Shikibu, interjected. Genichiro felt his lip curl. It was all of their faults.

“How many were lost?” he demanded of Gyoubu, with less mercy.

The man sniffed and shook his head briskly. “Only two dozen men in the company in front avoided the collapse or managed to jump to safety… only half as many of their horses. There were four companies already on the bridge… agh, Genichiro… hundreds…”

“How many?” he asked again with gritted teeth.

“Six hundred. Give or take. We don’t have a headcount on those who made it to the other side.”

Six hundred men and horses. Genichiro felt a little sick. Fighting it down, his fists clenched so hard he heard the bones grinding together.

“Wolf,” he called out when he found his voice.

The shinobi kneeling on guard outside the door stood to attention.

“Bring Ema. I need medical reports.” 

Wolf nodded and went.

Genichiro fixed his eye on Shume Oniwa. “I want to redistribute the survivors to the east along with the reserves,” he explained. “To hear you tell it the Iwage are running back to the warmth of their hearths like squirrels.”

A couple of the generals grinned, but he wasn’t in a jesting mood.

Shume crossed his arms. “You think we should go on the aggressive while they’re falling back, my lord?”

“We just lost our primary food source. Yes, I do. Our own stocks might last us the winter, but after that? Even if we can retake the bridge lands without the help of the bridge itself, re-establishing that supply route could take months. We need to take advantage of the Iwage’s cowardice.”

Ashina could not starve. He would not let her.

* * *

Wolf found Ema in the castle’s infirmary wing, working tirelessly through a haze of unwellness—sickly sweat and blood and other human fluids. His eyes passed over the figure of a man stretched out on a straw mat, his body wrapped head to toe in dark-stained bandages; his breath came out in wheezes. The only ones better off were clutching the stumps of ruined limbs, patches of skin melted into bone.

When the doctor spotted Wolf in the doorway she briskly passed her task over to a hovering apprentice and rushed through the ward towards him. Her usually impeccable hair was messily stuffed under a headwrap and her apron-front was stained, but a tired smile lit up her cheeks when she reached him and grasped his forearm. He flinched in surprise at the touch. Her grip was as chilly as ever, but after a moment the surprise passed, and he didn’t feel cold.

“You’ve returned,” she said. “I’m glad.”

“Why? Do you need help?”

She frowned, smile quirking. “We’ll manage. You’re alright, is my point… though you look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“I’m alright.” He glanced over her shoulder awkwardly. “Lord Genichiro has asked for you.”

Her smile dropped. “Of course. The war room?”

Wolf shrugged. “It’s war.”

She nodded and turned back to the ward, calling out, “Momo, come.”

A pretty, plump young woman in the attire of an apprentice hurried over. “Yes, Ema-sensei?”

“Momo, I’m trusting you to oversee the younger medics here while I take care of some things. Is that alright?”

The young woman’s eyes widened for a moment as the colour blanched from her face except for two rosy spots. Then she seemed to remember herself, and bowed deferentially. “Yes, Ema-sensei. You can count on me.”

Ema flashed her a gentle smile before turning to follow Wolf out of the ward. Neither of them said anything for a while. Eventually the gift of fresh air circulating around the rest of the castle made Ema inhale deeply and let it out in a bone-weary sigh.

“It’s… awful,” she said summarily.

“Yes.”

“It happened so fast, all those deaths at once. And caring for those that survived has been non-stop…” Her tone was calm, even while she wrung her hands in front of her. “And… I worry about Lord Isshin, of course.”

“He can take care of himself,” Wolf said, though he wasn’t really sure what to think.

“I assume Genichiro wants to know exact numbers? He’s like that. He’d have made a wonderful scholar.”

Wolf frowned, wondering if that were true. He realised he didn’t know Lord Genichiro well at all. Not in the way she did. He knew his master spent a lot of time reading, but what was that knowledge to someone who would never stick his nose in where it wasn’t wanted?

Ema shrugged. “He’s a scholar of war, at any rate.”

“Yes.”

For a few more moments they were quiet except for the sound of sandals whispering against floorboards, until Ema stopped very abruptly. She reached out a hand to touch him again, and her palm landed so near to his throat that he froze up on the spot.

“Wh—?”

“You’re hurt too,” the physician declared. Her finger traced a misshapen circle in the air, close enough to his skin that it prickled, without ever actually touching the thing she was talking about: “This bruise, here.”

Wolf quickly slapped a hand over his neck, knocking her hand away in the process. He turned on his heel and led the rest of the way to the war room without much more in the way of conversation. Silence, however, spoke volumes.

When they arrived, Lord Genichiro was deep in an animated discussion with his generals, looking up only briefly before fixing his gaze on the map again. Wolf resumed his place outside. Ema sat watchfully by his master, as close as a sister. Wolf didn’t miss her subtle gaze surveying much more than the map as the meeting went on.

By the time it was over, the atmosphere within the four walls was practically thrumming with a tense, restless energy he could feel in his throat; the hairs on his knuckles were standing on end. The generals bowed to their commander and left in file, each going to their respective posts with haste, leaving only Genichiro and Ema seated at the table.

The doctor stood up and walked over to the door. Wolf couldn’t catch her eye before she was sliding it closed, barring him from sight.

He still heard every word.

Ema was neutral at first, but she soon began questioning, and she did so with a surgical precision. Genichiro was forced to confess—to what he’d done and what an error of judgment it was but most of all how much he doubted his shinobi regretted it, judging by… _Oh. No._ Out of sight, Wolf clamped a hand over his mouth, his face growing hot with shame and embarrassment. It was worse that his master remembered it with such indifference. Worse that Ema was now privy too. He almost expected her whisper of laughter to follow, but it never came.

In the end it was not Genichiro’s dismissal of what had happened that made the final cut to Wolf’s dignity. He had already bound that wound. It was the way that, here and now, for the first time, he heard Ema raise her voice.

It tore him up, because this was war, and what had happened at the temple had changed nothing, but what had happened at the bridge had changed everything, and yet here he was, kneeling alone while a woman fought for him. When the door opened again Ema’s face was serene with something he would never understand. Like she knew where she stood. He envied that. She gave him a grimace too bitter to be a smile before walking back toward the infirmary. Wolf wanted to curl up somewhere and die. 

A minute passed before Genichiro walked out after her. The aura he was giving off was palpable; it had a scent and it was one Wolf hadn’t picked up since the day he had first been placed into the man’s service. That day, his master had drawn his blood and touched his scars.

Look where all of that had ended up.

When they arrived back at their shared private quarters, Genichiro began shedding layers with shaking fingers. Wolf slid the door shut behind them, watching without feeling. The hat was tossed against the wall first, then the travelling cloak, its fastenings torn in haste, and it was then that he could see the scars that arced across the man’s skin from fingertip to collarbone. Usually white, they had flushed an angry red.

“Do you know why I went to Senpou Temple?” Genichiro asked of him—or perhaps of the air—kneeling to rip at the knots of his sandals.

_To have your way with me?_ No. Wolf wouldn’t willingly play the fool. “You sought the Mortal Blade,” he replied.

“Yes,” Genichiro gnashed impatiently. “But why? Do you know why? Do you know why I thought it had been used?”

“Why?”

Barefoot now and looking for all the world like some wild, cornered animal, Genichiro turned to Wolf and _sneered_. “Because of your master. I thought someone had used the blade to kill that boy.”

Wolf stared back, sick with doubt. He may have been Genichiro’s now, but he had been Kuro’s for years before; that connection didn’t die easy. Something in his chest gave a murmur of sharp pain.

“The blade is used to kill the Undying. That’s what you told me,” he blurted. “Lord Kuro… he was just a boy.”

“I wondered.” Something altogether unlike a smile twisted Genichiro’s bowed lips. “The way you survived that wound on your chest… the healing… and of course, the sakura. It was everywhere. I wondered…”

“What are you saying?” There was something unnerving about the way his lord was speaking: disjointed and aimless as far as Wolf could make out.

Genichiro shook his head, getting to his feet and crossing to the opposite door, resting a fist on the handle as if for support. “I was wrong anyway. All my theories were baseless and the whole journey to the temple was a waste of time. I could have been here, instead. Could have… done something.”

Somehow Wolf knew this was the last Genichiro intended to speak of it. That he wouldn’t receive any more than crumbs. Not a single thing to soothe the knowledge that everything that had happened between them had been ‘a waste of time’. That nothing had changed after all. Nothing at all.

Genichiro slid the door open and Wolf blurted it out, knowing it was reckless, a risk, but knowing the need was greater than any shame he still had left.

“My lord…” he began, and the other man stopped still. “In the Hirata Massacre, I lost my father. For good. When it happened I blamed myself. I felt I should have been there. I wasn’t there.”

Genichiro remained like an eagle poised for flight, silent and waiting.

“I mean to say that you have a chance. Some hope,” Wolf continued, speaking to his back. “Lord Isshin is still alive, and if you blame yourself for nothing… then that chance may as well be for nothing too.”

Genichiro turned and shot toward him with a speed most would have struggled to counter. Wolf simply chose not to. The scarred hand slammed into his chest and pinned him against the closed door with such force it knocked the air from his lungs. Genichiro’s own breath flared against his face, bearing over him like a storm. Wolf closed his eyes to whatever would come next. Would he break his promise again? Take out his anger on his quickly-healing skin?

Or maybe his master would finally submit to that other urge, the one Wolf had privately hoped he would, many times before.

To put a sword through his chest. Open up the scar again and close the matter for good.

In the end Genichiro only hissed: “Remember your place, shinobi. Remember who you serve.”

Hot spittle flecked Wolf’s cheek. Opening his eyes, he stared right up into his master’s unmerciful stare and answered, “Yes, my lord.”

It twisted the knife and he knew it. Genichiro’s fist balled in his clothing as he drew back and gave him a second shove against the door, one that lifted his feet clear off the ground. He could feel the heat of the other man’s skin through the layers of his clothes. 

“You really think you can speak down to me just because you let me between your thighs?!” Genichiro hissed. Their noses were almost touching. Wolf’s skin felt static. “I thought one of your like would know better, shinobi…”

It wasn’t just anger now. It was barely anger at all. It was something desperate, something that had forsaken belief.

“You are _nothing_,” he seethed. “I want nothing from you. I _need_ nothing from you.”

Then he let Wolf drop, and while it wasn’t an issue to keep balance, he heard the sound of wood splintering behind him. The taller man turned away and covered his face with his hand.

The voice that came through was muffled, but the shinobi heard the crack in it. “_You are driving me out of my mind_.”

Wolf could no longer find the strength to speak, or to apologise. Forgiveness was a luxury afforded to those with less blood on their hands. With less dirt in their souls.

“Don’t follow me,” was the last thing Genichiro said before leaving, half-staggering, knocking shoulder against doorjamb in his haste. His footsteps quickly faded until Wolf was left with nothing.

He didn’t know what to do now, and lacked the energy to stand, so he sat on the floor. Softly enough that any other ears might have missed it, something inside his obi jingled. He took the charm out and looked at it, the brass bell rolling from a red cord. The widow’s words repeated in his mind. _For his sake… Offer it to Buddha for his sake… The young master…_

Lord Kuro.

Wolf held the cold metal in his fist until it grew warm and its shape was indented on his palm, but it did nothing to stop his chest from aching.

He considered visiting Kuro’s grave. The sweets he’d received from the girl at Senpou Temple might make a good gift. He’d wanted to share them with Ema, but… the thought of facing her again made him feel queasy. Kuro had never had much of a sweet tooth himself. Even so, he’d sneaked into the kitchens time and time again to purloin treats to bring back to his shinobi in return for his good graces… or perhaps just because he was kind.

Kinder than Wolf had ever earned, or deserved.

It was no small wonder that the young lord’s grave still received gifts. But maybe in the night the cemetery would be empty, and no one would notice a small wolf leaving his final offering before he disappeared… 

Yet, he could not think like that. He had sworn he wouldn’t, many years ago.

To his father, who’d saved him from worse. And for the young master’s sake.

He put the bell charm safely back into his obi and listened to the birth of a gentle storm outside.

It was not gentle for long. Hail swept in, drumming upon the walls and scattering through the window-slats. Through the din he heard people shouting in the courtyard below, ducking for shelter and rushing to pen animals away. That was merely setting the scene for the real crescendo, though: lightning that painted the castle in a dozen blinking shades of black, yellow and white, thunder peeling at the same time as it struck. It was right overhead. Once or twice, Wolf swore he felt the building shake.

Then it was gone, as fast as it had come. The hail softened into rain, the thunder dispersing into a mournful gale. 

Genichiro’s steps were quieter, slower, upon his return. Subdued. Through the open door, Wolf saw his large frame pass down the corridor and then into his bedroom, only a glimpse, but long enough for him to see that he was naked from the waist up, that his scabbard was empty, and that his arms were dripping with blood.

“Lord Genichiro!” Wolf leaped to his feet, previous orders forgotten, and followed his master into the next room.

The man was already clumsily wrapping gauze around his arms when Wolf arrived in the doorway, unsure whether to risk stepping any further—but when he looked up, Genichiro’s eyes were empty of the fire that had kindled them before. His hair was dishevelled. He reeked of ozone.

Wolf knew what he was seeing, but didn’t understand.

“Let me help,” he said, and Genichiro let him.

There would be no gentle way of binding his arms, no matter Wolf’s best efforts. Whatever Genichiro had done had opened up deep cracks in the skin; old scars had split once more, the flesh around them bubbled and popped. The smell was already harsh. Wolf peeled off the bandages that Genichiro had started on, already sticky with blood, and found a jug of sake in the cabinet.

“Don’t bother,” Genichiro bristled, though there was a note of fear in his voice. “Just bandages. I don’t… want to look at them any longer.”

Wolf sternly uncorked the jug and knelt next to him again. “If you don’t do this, they could get infected. Then you would have to see Ema.”

Genichiro fell quiet after that.

He struggled to remain so, however, as the alcohol was dabbed over his raw wounds, and he muffled his agony in the seam of Wolf’s shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut to the sight of the watery-red spill of his limbs. Wolf blotted the run-off with a wad of gauze, but what remained of Genichiro’s clothes were ruined. His own sleeves and hakama had received their fair share of staining, too.

He focused his mind on the task at hand, refusing to think of other things.

He wound the gauze around Genichiro’s arms while the lord hissed and gasped and shuddered. It surprised Wolf that he would react so viscerally to pain. Not that he had any illusions about his master’s humanity, only that he was so very proud. It surprised him, too, how thin his arms actually were, the muscle twisted and bone-spare under his fingertips. His own fingers were calloused, but he did his best to be gentle. He had his share of practice with this, after all. 

By the time he was done, Genichiro’s face was wet with tears.

“Are you alright?” Wolf asked.

“I will be,” said Genichiro. “Now.”

For a few minutes they sat in silence as the bandaged man recovered his composure, staring through the slats of the window. A soft rain was falling outside, peaceful and sleepy in that way it only ever could be in the wake of a storm. 

“I apologise,” Genichiro murmured.

Wolf’s frown wilted, studying his master’s features in the gathering dark. It wasn’t enough, really, wasn’t anything, but he took it anyway, capitulating to what was and always had been a poorly-weighted scale. If that was his allotment in this life, then so be it.

“I want to help,” Wolf said slowly, resting his bloodied fists upon his knees. “Lord Isshin can be saved, if reinforcements can be gotten across the valley…”

“They can’t,” Genichiro cut him off. “Not without the Great Bridge. Without it, reinforcements would take weeks to get around the valley… if they even made it…” He rubbed a hand over his face, where it stayed, shielding his eyes. He confessed, “I don’t know what to do.”

The vulnerability hit Wolf in the pit of his belly. His fingers itched, but he did not reach out. He knew better than that.

“Send me,” he asked instead. It wore the mantle of a command, and he knew it, but the realisation came too late for him to truly care. “Send me into the valley. I can survey any threats, chart out a route…”

“You’ll just end up another broken corpse at the bottom.” The hitch in Genichiro’s voice was muffled, but not unnoticed. “Is that what you want?”

“I want…” Wolf bit his tongue. Lowered his gaze. He only wanted one thing that was not an end, and that was what he could manage along the way. “I ask… that you use me, my lord. The way I’m meant to be used. The way I’m good for.”

Genichiro lowered his hand and fixed his shinobi with a weary, bloodshot stare, not answering for a long moment. Though he didn’t look up, Wolf once again had that distinct feeling of being read, the way his lord’s gaze crackled over him making him flush with uneasy heat.

Finally Genichiro shook his head and made a defeated noise. “Fine,” he muttered. “Alright. But take as many days as you need to prepare. You can liaise with the Nightjar, if you can use their skills. Having insurance in the field never hurts.”

“I work best alone,” Wolf mumbled.

Genichiro snickered with little humour. Still, a little was more than none. “Why am I not surprised?”

He sighed and got to his feet, grunting hoarsely from the effort of not bumping his arms, and crossed to the airing cupboard. Wolf watched him pull out fresh clothes and sandals tied together with string, but looked away when he began to change. He’d not watched him _un_dress; why should this be any different?

“I’m setting out for the bridge tonight,” he heard Genichiro say through the rustle of cloth. “It should be light enough by the time I arrive to try and make contact over the gap. I don’t see the sense in waiting any longer. A lot can change in a day and a night.”

Wolf nodded. Patience clearly wasn’t Genichiro’s strength, but the roads within Ashina itself were good enough that his haste at least wouldn’t be suicidal. “I can leave tonight as well,” he offered.

“No,” Genichiro said quickly. “No, I… would prefer you to wait.”

Wolf looked over without thinking. Genichiro was facing the closet, reaching his bandaged arms up to comb long fingers through his hair, causing the hem of a lined hadagi—the only thing he wore—to ride up over lean thighs. The arch of his back was statuesque. Wolf knew with a sudden pang that these rooms would feel cold without him.

“I will do as you ask,” he said.

His master smiled faintly, almost thoughtlessly, over his shoulder, tying off his hair with a ribbon. “Good.”

When Genichiro left his quarters a little later, his farewell was casual, almost like an afterthought. But he lingered just long enough to make a point of telling Wolf this: “When I’m gone, have a look in the yellow chest in my room. It’s something for you.” He met Wolf’s eye only briefly before heading down the corridor, out of sight.

Night fell on Ashina. With it came rain, heavier and more oppressive than before.

Wolf watched from the lookout tower as Genichiro’s retinue left the castle gates on their way to the ruins of the Great Bridge. While his priority was to make contact with Lord Isshin, this was only the first step on his circuit of Ashina’s perimeter, ensuring all the stops were in place for what, now, was a state of open war. Merely doing his best, Wolf supposed, making use of his own skills where he could. He would likely be gone for weeks. As of tomorrow, the shinobi would be too.

When the gates closed behind the last of the horses’ tails, Wolf turned away from the view and descended back into the private quarters, passing the library on the way. This was where Genichiro had sometimes been holed up for days at a time. Researching the Mortal Blade, as it turned out. Stitching together his theory about Lord Kuro’s death from incongruous scraps. His former lord’s body was ashes now, but a vague unease trickled through him at the idea of interfering with the peace of the dead, even if only in thought. Wolf was not innocent of the stain. He had travelled with the Mob as a child, after all, prising cold steel from the cold grips of rotting men.

He made a note to visit the cemetery next. It would be his first offering, but not his last—of that, he was certain.

But first, the yellow chest. It stood in one corner of Genichiro’s room, unassuming despite the beauty of its craftsmanship, sort of piled together with a collection of dust-coated books and a training sword and an assortment of stray bits and pieces. It looked like a crowded, unnecessary mess to Wolf’s eye, but to Genichiro he knew it held an ordered chaos, that everything had its place.

He hooked a finger under the lid of the chest. Even with his lord’s permission, he had to push through a well-trained hesitation to rifle through his things.

Except.

They weren’t Genichiro’s things.

Inside the chest, he found a frayed scarf of undyed linen and a faded orange haori that was missing one sleeve.

He hesitated to touch them, at first. The items didn’t seem quite real even though they were laid out so clearly in front of him. When he did reach out his hands they were trembling and as soon as they grasped the time-softened fabric they bunched into tight fists, avaricious with longing. He brought the relics up to his face, breathing deep. The ancient smells lingered, clinging on despite the efforts of scrubbing and lye. Smells that reminded him of survival—more than that—of _living_. Smells of home.

Why were they here?

His eyes snapped open as he heard the unmistakable sound of a sword being unsheathed in the empty room behind him.


	11. Tooth For Tooth

The sound of steel being unsheathed fell shrilly, uneasy, into the post-storm silence. Wolf stared at the figure standing in the shadows of Lord Genichiro’s room, and the figure, katana in hand, stared back. Not his lord—out of place here, unwelcomed. Nor a peasant, despite the straw _mino_ he pulled from his shoulders and threw to the side of the room. The action revealed what lay beneath—a close-fitting, striped ensemble with hints of foreign design. Not of Ashina, at any rate. A black mask and hood hid half of his face. Belts of kunai and pouches lined a tall, powerful body, like teeth. A stranger in purple and black.

Familiar.

After so many years, the physical sensation of his body registering a mortal threat was imperceptible to Wolf, but the change was there nonetheless, like his mind itself was dropping into a different stance. Wolf unsheathed Satokiri without ceremony.

Honour in duels was a luxury shinobi could not afford.

The intruder jerked, and Wolf’s vision flashed. He raised his sword just in time to cut the stranger’s shuriken out of the air. Then the shadow was on him, closing the gap. They sparred, metal ringing, the clang echoing up the muscles of his arms. Then broke away.

They circled each other, eyes fixed. Assessing. Waiting.

Wolf struck first, wasn’t about to let the intruder set the pace. He swiped, forced the shadow’s guard down low. Spun up and aimed a slash at his neck—not wasting time. _End this._

But the intruder checked every hit, easy, almost casual. Wolf kicked out at his shin as he jumped away, putting some distance between their blades.

They circled again. He felt watched. Scrutinized. _Assessed_.

Some tight and uncomfortable feeling in his gut made him think of the Owl.

_Focus._

When the shadow grunted it was a giveaway. Wolf turned his body to check a powerful undercut he saw coming from a mile off… but completely missed the kick aimed for his side. He staggered from the force, barely blocking the next sword-swipe, and felt steel bite into the flesh of his forearm.

They broke apart once more. His attacker was _playing with him_. Wolf controlled his breath, not dwelling on it, not looking at the blood soaking through his sleeve...

Not that the shadow offered any chance for distraction. With a guttural shout more befitting a samurai than an assassin, the opponent _dived_, drove his sword double-handed in a forward wedge, the sort of strike that would pin a grown man to the wall—

But not Wolf. Not Owl’s prodigy. One foot pivoted, the other rose and slammed down, hard against the flat of the shadow’s blade, and wedged it into the wall behind. Wolf had a brief moment to appreciate the flash of surprise on his attacker’s face, before he let go of the jammed weapon and raised, instead, his fists.

_No._ Wolf stabbed his own katana forward, aiming for the heart. Only years of training or sheer dumb luck allowed the unarmed man to catch the blade before it struck and reroute it—but only so much—as Satokiri sank into the meat of the shadow’s shoulder. Wolf grit his teeth and _twisted_. The shadow growled in pain as sinew and flesh tore and warped, kicked out at Wolf’s shins, but the shinobi held fast, pushing down on Satokiri’s hilt, trying to force the shadow to the ground.

He wasn’t expecting the force behind the final kick, the one that shoved him back against the wall, his hands slipping free of the hilt.

With a grunt, the intruder ripped Wolf’s sword from his shoulder. But Wolf wasn’t about to let his own blade be turned against him.

Their hands grappled for control on the now-bloody hilt, palms slipping together in the hot slick, until Wolf’s ear suddenly exploded with pain and noise, his vision blurred. The shadow gave up the fight for the sword and repeated the blow: flat of the palm against the side of Wolf’s head. A lesser opponent could have easily blacked out.

But Wolf wasn’t. Wolf couldn’t be.

He cracked his skull against the shadow’s nose and smelled the blood streaming from broken vessels, buying him mere seconds to untangle his limbs before the next bout began. The swords had long since clattered away, forgotten in the urgency of simply two bodies vying for the upper hand.

Hands, and elbows and knees, too. Wolf knew then that the intruder had not come here to assassinate a Lord who had already departed, nor even to take his shinobi down silently. This was a duel. A duel of honour for those without honour, and a mission of revenge.

Revenge for his fallen brother, that was what drove the heel of the shadow’s foot into Wolf’s stomach, making him cough up blood and bile. Revenge fuelled the fist that hammered into his eye socket, shattering bone and blood vessels, and would have rendered his vision to mush if not for Wolf’s own reflexes. A desperate elbow to his attacker’s solar plexus bought Wolf some time, but the shadow was _fast_, strong, far stronger than Wolf was when unarmed, and bigger too. The shadow was bleeding from shoulder, gums, and a thoroughly pulped nose when he managed to kick Wolf’s legs right from under him.

His back hit the ground without grace. Then there were hands around his throat, the man’s full weight pinning him down. No time for flashbacks now. Apologies, instead, ran through Wolf’s mind as he tried and failed to gain purchase on his killer’s skull, fingers too slick with blood, his every capillary too deprived of air… and then everything was pain, shock, white hot pain. There were teeth in the Wolf’s throat, tearing arteries from flesh. Black and red faded to nothingness.

He had the sensation of being dragged. However, he knew that was impossible. He had no body, and certainly couldn’t feel his feet snagging behind him. Yet surely enough, there was some force working on the fragment of his being that remained.

He tried to open his eyes. A premonition warned him off. A deep bone-chilling sense that to look would be a grave mistake.

And so he stayed blind, deaf, aware only of the feeling of being pulled through a space that was not a space, toward an end only the gods could guess at.

Then, a voice. At first he was confused. To hear a voice, a tangible, human voice, in this void… it shouldn’t have made sense. But somehow it did, more than anything else.

The voice was one he recognised.

He knew it better than he knew the shape of his own hand, or the feeling of his feet treading quietly on bare wood floors.

“_Loyal Wolf. Take my blood and live again._”

Life flooded back to him, in a sakura-pink rush.


End file.
